Design domain work log report 03.21 - 12.21 and discussion for next period

[ta-lind]

This is the follow-up report of the last years design domain works and budget proposal: https://proposals-archive.decred.org/proposals/76eba5a



Total expenditure by subdomains was as following:
UX/UI 16.7k of $34 000
Identity 9k of $14 000
Visual comms 250 of $10 000
Figma subscriptions: $621

Total: $26 628
Noting that ~$3k was of UX/UI work was billed as part of the previous proposal, thus actual listing in CMS is lower than this amount.

UX/UI
Roughly 50% of the budget was spent. The unspent budget accounts primarily for dcrweb, which did not receive any significant contributions, as well increased efficiency via new workflows. Majority of the tasks listed in the beginning of the proposal for Pi-ui library, Politeia, Decrediton and CMS were completed.

Identity
Bulk of the listed tasks were completed: notably the update to the identity program and migrating it to Figma, as well the onboarding tutorials content production. Onboarding assets changed direction as the motion delivery was dropped. Instead we shifted to static images and created additional assets of these than in initial scope. These are created with the approach (techniques and limitations in mind) to be easily animated via Lottie/json down the line if there is sufficient interest.

Visual comms
The budget was mostly unused as there was only a few (mostly integration) image requests. For 1.7.0 we re-used renders created from last proposal period for DCRDEX, which back then did not get the deserved stagetime.

Summary

• Overall the practice of using Figma has significantly streamlined the workflows.
• The team libaries are up to date and growing, as well provide improved accessibility in comparison to previous means.
• Parts of the assets have been shared via Figma Community publishing and show solid interest. Similarly to the animation library in lottie, publishing open assets to the figma community will likely also help to promote Decred and potentially the design contributors ranks.
• Over the last proposal period unfortunately several contributors have gone inactive, thus creating some shortage availability.

Decrediton:

• launcher, trezor and wallet creation improvements dcrdesign/Decrediton: Launcher improvements regarding Trezor and Onboarding updates #262 decrediton/#3297
• LN ux/ui improvements decrediton/#3296
• settings views updates decrediton/#3613
• various minor spacing and component improvements
• testing and design support on various minor bugs

Identity:

• design and identity guidelines update and migration to figma dcrdesign/Dcrdesign - identity and visual comms guidelines update #266
• onboarding content dcrdesign/Onboarding content updates 12.2021 #265
• feedback and requests to exchanges for correct logo/id usage

Visual comms:

• integration images: wazirx, bitfinex, bitcoin.com
• 1.7.0 RC images
• DiD templates updates and new assets, migration to Figma

Pi-ui:

• component libraries updates and organization
• design support for requests, new components etc
• high contrast mode grayscale base templates dcrdesign/piui - high contrast greyscale themes #264

Politeia:

• messaging ux improvements concept politeiagui/#2703
• proposal view ui improvements politeiagui/#2704
• testing and design support to minor bugs, issues
• n/a: Improve proposal status lifecycle
• n/a: proposal budgeting insights

CMS:

• ux/ui improvements for: navigation flows, invoicing, grouping and layouts
  
https://github.com/decred/politeiagui/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+author%3Alinnutee+%5Bcms%5D

  https://github.com/decred/politeiagui/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+author%3Amariapleshkova+%5Bcms%5D+

Dcrweb: not addressed
As for dcrweb, there’s a log of items from the past proposal still to be addressed

• Staking improvements on dcrweb, /vsp subpage overhaul (in relation to motion and graphics production)
• News and Posts
• Identity subpage
• Support subpage
• Smaller issues regarding legibility and dated assets
• Design support for on-going issues and requests

[ta-lind]

Sharing a few notes and ideas for design contributions which could potentially be worked on over the current year. This is a precursor for the domain budget proposal, as well gauging for for interest. Please share any feedback and thoughts or requests which the design contributors could help with.

dcrweb / product pages:

• dcrweb received its last major update nearly 2 years ago in January 2020. Assuming there’s enough interest from other contributors from the content and marketing side I’m happy to continue providing design support. E.g. reflecting the comms. updates, better coverage of dcrdex. @jzbz?
• DCRDEX subpage updates with focus on onboarding and promoting
• Politeia product page: similarly to DCRDEX, I propose creating a product page to promote Politeia (product). The page could be a one pager based off the https://www.notion.so/eeter/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409#dfd31945e3e44f6d94f9aa577f3b1cf1. For relevant content, we can create case studies around the proposal system, contractor management system, hackathon entries as well sort of pseudo-examples on applying Pi to various industries. Myself and the contributors at t8d have a fair bit of experience with product design for transportation and heavy industries (ie. marine shipping, fleet management, mining), so rather than just listing down potential industries we could produce plausible UI examples to illustrate realistic use cases.

Pi-ui:

• Figma repos management, on-going design support for requests
• Publish and promote free and open sets of practical assets and libraries via Figma Community

Decrediton:

• Dcrdex setup and launching ui/ux improvements
• Testing and on-going design support for requests
• UX concept for a test transaction feature: one of the findings from ad-hoc user studies is people often try sending a small amount as a test transaction when it comes to larger tx's. However doing this test transaction can be somewhat impractical or not really give that much safety as they need to double enter the address, and oddly split some small amount. I propose creating a kind of "confirmation transaction" which sends the smallest possible amount (for safety) → which then could be easily checked on the block explorer as well continues on to a second transaction without needing to re-enter the address and offers option to deduct the previous "testing amount".

dcrdex:
Since dcrdex is now in an actual release and with spv, @chappjc @buck54321 wondering if it makes sense to start working pi-ui (components, type, color, icons) into the dcrdex ui for consistency? Also asking if there's any specific areas what might benefit from the most improving interaction and ui design? Off the bat the wallet could benefit picking up some common practices from decrediton. And for markets we could benchmark good ux practices from established exchanges.

Politeia / Proposal system:
Following up to these: decred/politeiagui#2578

• ui placement for onboarding content
• proposal lifecycle / timeline
• politeia comment tipping via lightning

Politeia / CMS:
As there was a fair bit of improvements submitted over the last period I’m assuming over this period these will be worked on/implemented, there won't be much design needs.

• ui placement for onboarding content
• on-going design support for smaller scale requests

Voting Dashboard:

• Iirc we created an initial interface for this around 2017. I propose updating this to pi-ui for consistency, as well improving the overview content/infographics.

Identity / Visual comms. / Ops:

• Continue work on the onboarding content and seeing through copy finalization and implementation. Additional content could be created for dcrdex, privacy, politeia/cms, private key management and security practices, payments (transactions)
• Prototype & test onboarding content animations via Lottie/json
• Key visuals for releases
• gh/decred primary repo pages improvements (graphic elements, icons, type consistency)
• Update content for design contributions and promote the Decred projects design domain for prospective contributors
• Provide feedback on best practice of using Decred's visual branding (e.g. exchanges, high impact placements).