Beyond Text Proposals

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Introduce easy-to-build visualizations and quantifiable metrics to supplement/replace most of the text of a proposal.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

I'm a full-stack software developer with ten years of experience, and also a 1st cohort Plutus Pioneer.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Vrooli is a no-code prototyping and automation platform built for Cardano. We aim to make smart contracts, APIs, data, interfaces, and standards interoperable and decentralized through the use of routines. This proposal upgrades a few features of Vrooli to maximize its utility as a prototyping solution. This includes multi-party routines, auto-generated metrics, and much better proposal displays.

Currently, users can design routines using a drag-n-drop interface. This allows for the quick creation of flowchart-like diagrams for prototyping and explaining how users will interact with a product. Additionally, each subroutine can be associated with text details and inputs. This allows users to step through the routine, and the application will automatically generate a text guide with the appropriate input components (text fields, checkboxes, etc.).

We want to extend the functionality of routines to better support the representation of business processes and any other multi-user scenarios. In addition to routines that are run by a single person (as they are done now), you will be able to create workflows for multiple roles. For example, the owner of an NFT project may design a routine for promoting new artwork, that cannot be marked as complete until their social media manager promotes it. Or another example, a DAO may design a business process for improvement proposals, where members have a certain amount of time to vote before the proposal can be closed/developed.

In addition, we’d also like to implement an expressive set of metrics to describe how beneficial proposals are to the community. For a routine, you should be able to see how many people have viewed/run/starred it, the simplicity/complexity of its structure, how long it takes for people to complete (overall and per subroutine), the number of context-switches users make while running it (the less the better), and more. There will also be an intuitive display to compare metrics with similar routines. This will help proposers and voters understand how popular their product could become, as well as how much of an improvement it is over what's currently available.

For the overall application, you should be able to view daily/weekly/monthly/yearly statistics for active users, the number of routines started/completed, and more. 

The final feature we propose is improved project displays. One display will mimic the format of Project Catalyst’s current proposal structure, to let you quickly copy and paste proposals you’ve designed on Vrooli into Ideascale. Another display will be an opinionated design for how we think proposals should look. This will be customizable in your settings, so every proposal you view can show the most important information for you - in just the way you like.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The challenge states that voting participation is less than 20%, and 30% of the people who do vote pick random proposals. There are many reasons why this might be, but (arguably) the main reason is the amount of effort it takes to perform due diligence on each proposal. Not only do you have to read a wall of text to gain a vague idea of what’s being proposed, but you also have to make a guess as to how much the proposal would actually benefit the community. Even people who are willing to go through all of this effort may not be able to, because the proposal was not in a language they speak.

We believe that much of the information conveyed by a proposal can be represented by visualizations and metrics, which would significantly reduce the time required to perform due diligence. This has the added benefit of minimizing the amount of text needing translation and conveying as much as possible in a language-agnostic way.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

The main development risk this project faces is time. If the other proposals we submitted take more time to develop than expected, then this project may be delayed by a few weeks. Luckily all will be hosted on an existing website that has been designed to accommodate these features from the start, so there should be relatively few development hurdles.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

The project will be hosted on the Vrooli application. All features will be available to everyone for free. The code is well-documented and has a GPL license. Vrooli is a Progressive Web Application (PWA), so it can be downloaded as a mobile app. It will have push notifications, a customizable appearance, wallet and email authentication, and all other features you’d expect from a modern app. 

Routine visualizations are created through an intuitive drag-n-drop interface that works on desktop, mobile, and VR. Multi-user routines will utilize swim lanes to organize parallel processes. You will be able to set complex restrictions on routines, which can require a certain percentage/number of users in a role to complete a task, a minimum/maximum wait time, and more. When a routine is started, users will be notified if action is required from them.

Metrics will be extensive and easy to understand. They will be queried from the routine, similar routines, and the entire application to provide you with as many statistics as possible.

Proposals (or projects as they are called in Vrooli) can be associated with many routines. An export feature will allow you to convert a routine to a PNG image, so you can upload it to an Ideascale proposal. Users will be able to view proposals in the same structure as Ideascale, or in a custom view that they choose in their display settings. Sections will be collapsible and easier to navigate than Ideascale proposals. You will also be able to create proposals at any time for whatever you want, which makes Vrooli useful outside of the Project Catalyst funding cycle.

Timeline

• 2 weeks: Design plan completed for UX, API, and server
• 4 weeks: API and server upgraded
• 6 weeks: All metric types added and are automatically calculated and stored
• 8 weeks: Can easily compare metrics of routines
• 10 weeks: Multi-user routine support functional
• 11 weeks: Ability to pause a routine until specified conditions are met
• 12 weeks: Proposal displays improved, with the ability to set your own display layout
• 14 weeks: Most bugs squashed and testing complete
• 16 weeks: Stable launch🚀

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

• Full stack developer (me): (20 hr/week * 16 weeks *45/hr = $14400)
• Server costs, GitHub Copilot subscription + other miscellaneous developer fees: $240
• Celebratory champagne: $10

Total: $14650

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

This project will be developed by Matt Halloran. You can find all of his contact links at https://matthalloran.info.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

There will be proposals in the future to add additional functionality to Vrooli, For example, we plan to add the ability to execute smart contracts directly from routines. This will come with metrics for the cost to complete a routine. Combined with usage statistics and the stats comparison page, we can give an estimate for both the time and money the community will save if a proposal is completed and adopted. We also plan to implement a DID reputation system, with can be used to prove the experience of returning proposers.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be tracked automatically, and freely accessible in real-time. Our goals for this proposal are:

• 200 monthly active users (also tracking daily/weekly/yearly)
• 50 proposals created by users before the end of Fund11 (also tracking daily/weekly/monthly)
• Over 1000 votes cast in total (also tracking daily/weekly/monthly)

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• Proposal evaluation time is significantly less than the traditional proposal structure
• Becomes a place to experiment with prototypes and share proposals before the Project Catalyst submission window opens

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This builds off of the Fund6 proposal Community-Made Interactive Guides.