Co-design Social Appstore MVP [SDA]

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

[1] UNFCCC Report [2] Meaningful Brands 2021 - Havas Group.

Blockchain can truly become a force for good.

In this proposal, we ask for your investment in new social technology infrastructure development that will enable us to create true social impact through conversational interaction design, a new front-end approach to digital product design for web2 and web3.

A little background

I got funded for F6:In-wallet onboarding for Adaholders. This design research exposed so much more potential, but we have to remediate our front-end interfaces from pages to digital conversations to enable this potential. Using our page-based medium for the Internet was ok, but for blockchain, it becomes an innovation blocker.

Illustration of the digital conversations/chat-like approach.

A Social Appstore that deploys good around the world

Imagine an Appstore that does not focus on functional benefits, like our walled garden Appstores do, and extend this utility approach with a new type of social app tailored to personal and collective benefits. Recent research shows [2 - p20] that businesses struggle to look beyond their practical product and services. Mainly because of their focus on their products & services all day long and the emotional barrier we put in place between business and private. [see proposal image]

Social App Pilots (ideation, less is more)

Social apps use a chat-like interface to interact with an individual based on needs and personal or collective development goals. These Social Apps can be downloaded in a piece of client software in later iterations (decentralize the software agent), but we will use a front-end stack only for the MVP.

Two Social Apps

Personal - Ikigai - Your reason for being (work with Littlefish)

Personal - Personal Brand, 36 questions of self-understanding (Professors Gary & Brent, permission to use their names.)

The second is a reconfiguration of the first, showing the potential of Conversational UI Toolkit.

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

Measure and track Social Impact is a challenge in itself. Businesses use R & D all the time, but when it comes to Social Innovation, we seem to revert to experiments.

We chose this challenge because Monetizing Digital Storytelling is our core premise.

Once the first Social App emerges, we can ask people how they feel or trigger a sentiment side-story. By letting users consent and anonymize their data, we can get a tangible overview of inner and collective development goals. This sentiment data gives direction to develop new Social apps or improve existing ones.

Speed up Social Innovation through conversational software.

Conversational Interaction Design lives between chatbot and webdesign, and is a manual design approach at first. We remove interpretation of text input, and replace it with a visual interface. We bring in the eyecandy from webdesign, so a digital storytellng stream emerges.

Changing content in social apps is far easier than in our page-based counterparts, with often requires to redesign the whole page-based flow,. So speeding up Social Innovation through software is another reason we chose this challenge.

A Social Design Academy project.

SDA coordinates this project in live classes. We believe we can systemize social impact by Humanizing and Democratizing software design using a public interest technology mindset. Our core philosophy is that our software got us in the mess we are in today, and it can get us out.

Read more in our Gitbook or join our SDA Discord.

"The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed." is one of my favorite quotes.

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

Conversational UI Toolkit turns parts into assets.

There are many moving parts, but we also have a lot of eyes and expertise in the ecosystem; using live classes is our magic bullet. By focusing on modules, and a chat-like approach for Social Apps, we also remove a lot of feature bloat you see in software today. Concentrating on one task completion at a time, we create a focus for design, development and the user.

Conversational Interaction Design reduces a lot of complexity, and using a Conversational UI Toolkit approach, we can leverage and focus our energy and effort.

Breaking the system down into product segments and modules

Using a First Principles method on Social Apps, we can extract Conversational Modules. (Check our Task Reward Budget for a specified / more visual overview)

E.g., an Ikigai consists of four questions. By breaking main questions down into sub-questions, we lower the barrier for people to think about their reason for being.

I have been using Ikigai in workshops since 2019, and some people are intimidated by these highly personal questions. Providing people with a Social app that keeps them on track, and holds their answers in a private data vault, can help many people overcome mental blocks. Compounding little insights, even answering questions differently over multiple days, is valuable. (Out of scope, but exciting: This just might create a whole new approach to mental health as well, as your data is not directly known to the service provider, you answer to yourself really.)

The power of conversational modules

Let's imagine we can break down an Ikigai into 12 questions, which still means 1 question module, and an 'Experience manager' component (simple schedular) that will manage a schedule to user choses. (E.g., Ask people 1 question a day just before bed time or in the morning.)

In short; A Conversational UI Toolkit that consists of product segments, components, and conversational modules, helps us leverage our potential. A 'Lego toolkit for Digital conversations,' or Flutter for Digital Storytelling as Devs might call it, sets up a good mental model.

Looking back on our web2 profiles doesn't make much sense; we all must unlearn and relearn together.

Another mitigation strategy is to value willingness to learn over ego and status. Learning while doing is part, and staying humble is the path to success. If we want to build real social software a lot of our page-based design approaches don't apply anymore. What stays is a clean approach to html/javascript/css but we repurpose these technologies for digital conversations.

Avoid / Control wrong us of this novel technology

Social Design Academy will provide partners with a SDA Social Technology Stack License that can be used by organizations using a Design for Good Intent. The SDA license has to be created by SDA Partners, and gives us control over technology stack usage. We envision a Social Brand definition in the future, so we can govern use Conversational UI Toolkit for public interest technology.

Other cooperatives

We will also start reaching out to Social technology cooperatives here in Amsterdam; although the missing web3 collaboration heart might be missing, we only know if we try.

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

A more visual Task-Reward spreadsheet here.

Social Design Academy will coordinate this work in Workshops & Social Technology Stack Live classes. We want to attract web2 UI developers that want to bridge the web2 and web3 world by mastering Conversational Interaction Design (Output of the F6: In-wallet Onboarding for ADAholders proposal. 

Social Design Academy has three pillars;

1. Rethink Brands; Define Brand Assistants for communities using a Character Canvas. The people own Social Brands.
2. Rethink Software; Build Real Social software with a new UX 3.0 system for communities to work together. [SDA proposal]
3. Rethink The way we work, de-colonize our design thinking, and start system design with civilian design thinkers and doers.

Design thinking needs a paradigm shift (Pages → Conversations)

We believe that if we can redirect community energy; 

1. Don't build page-based UI's for single-use applications; build re-usable Conversational Modules for Story-based Chat Assistants.
2. Don't build Siloed Applications; build a Conversational Assistant Network in a Social Appstore using Conversational Interaction Design.
3. Don't build a UI Toolkit for your community; create a Conversational UI Toolkit for Society.

By upgrading our thinking, we move from Design thinking for siloed solutions to System thinking for relational solutions.

Recent research by Fjord trends supports this;

"For years, the application of user-centered and human-centered design advocated by so many has often separated people from ecosystems. Now, designers must start to address people as part of an ecosystem rather than at the center of everything. This means designing for two sets of values: personal and collective." — Fjord Trends 2020 (Fjord, 2020) [1] 

By building a Conversational UI Toolkit for Society, we multiply every dollar requested. Let's co-design a social technology stack together and become a force for good.

The Social Appstore for Society

Social Appstore MVP/POC is a community R&D project. To create a Social Appstore that delivers personal and collective development goals, we have to combine forces. Not only between people (personal) but also between communities (collective).

Our Collective Development Goals are;

1. A Social Appstore POC, Conversational UI Focus (30% of budget)
2. A first iteration of the Conversational UI Toolkit (60% of budget)
3. Stretchgoal; Zipper Conversations to chain (10% of budget) 

(1-3) is an indication, we will have collective discussion about this before start.

Your investment funds help us validate the chat-like UI for Social Apps. By focusing on specific 'lego-bricks' (e.g., Speech bubble modules, In-line menu, Question modules, Side-story cards, Sentiment modules), we can converge energy into a solid production pipeline/workflow approach for individuals and communities.

Two Social apps that illustrate overlap in modules usage

We are in good contact with Littlefish (Ikigai) and the Professors behind the 36 Questions for self-understanding. [source]

These two Social apps give us focus.

1. Ikigai - Your reason for being
2. Personal Brand - 36 questions for self-understanding 

We envisioned the following UX Storyline as MVP/POC scope:

1. You visit an URL that a friend sends, and a personal message auto-plays. (Text, Video, or Audio)
2. A chat-like call-to-action asks if you want to add one of the two social apps to your Assistant.
3. You open the Social Appstore and see two visual story cards, 
4. Your Ikigai (Your reason for being)
5. Your Personal Brand (36 Questions for self-understanding)
6. You may pick only one, but you can try the other once you have finished your self-development session. 
7. The Social App overview is also where we research Conversational Cardano CLI payment, allowing you to pay to 'download value from the Cardano blockchain.'  
8. We call this 'zipper value to the blockchain.'
9. Once select your Social App, it appears in your Inventory. We probably use a centralized technology stack to get started (community discussion point) 
10. Once you return to the URL, we want to surprise people with some information about what happened in the network, using a ' This is what happened when you were away.' (eg. Proof of Interaction; Social Apps started, Questions answered, effort/time spent.)
11. By asking a couple of questions a day, for example, you slowly build up your Insight / Future profile. 
12. The goal is Kaizen - 1% improvement a day.
13. Setting up a morning/evening routine might be a good idea to train people in self-development.
14. Asking people questions about personal/collective development goals builds the research into the Social Appstore.
15. By compounding value in the Social Appstore and linking Social App to location, we create a new Situational-aware software paradigm that will surely hit home. (Out of scope, but fantastic stretch goal)

Above is a method called UX Storylines, which sets the scope of our thinking. Less is more, but we want to create the start of a Conversational Assistants Network. A real social network that is exciting and surprising and revolves around the following five qualities of civilized Society by Alfred North:

Truth, Beaty, Art, Adventure, Peace.

Subscribe to meaning in a new Social Appstore outside of the walled gardens.

'Together we Stand, Divided we fall.'

We must not fall into the trap of thinking in absolutes. Once you identify yourself with one system, you are lost. Let us connect in freedom, as we are just nodes in the network called life. 

We can bring our humanity into the network by designing Assistants into the network.

We can't expect to build the new with one investment; we must include the passion known in the web3 and Cardano community. Social Design Academy shall create a pitch deck for businesses that want to co-invest in Conversational Scripts & Module packs to round up additional funds and compound possibilities for a Conversational Brand Assistant Network.

We assign funds to tasks, and individuals or communities are made responsible for production in workgroups. We motivate each other by showing each other work/new possibilities in Design circles.

The objective is to create a tipping point in Cost vs. Value, using the leverage effect of compounding modules in a Conversational UI toolkit. Will this effort trigger a true Social Impact revolution?

Your investment will help us develop the first foundational 'Lego bricks'; see our Reward Schedule spreadsheet. [link]

Remember, Society is the sum of individuals; if we increase the self-connection of the individual (love for self), we become a better society (social cohesion).

Looking at the words that make up Civilized Society; 

Truth, Beauty, Art, Adventure, Peace.

These topics might not so coincidentally be under attack today.

Let us deploy Hope narratives in a new by the people for the people Social Appstore and combine our Collective genius.

The Social Appstore - Subscribe to meaning.

A WORKSTREAMS APPROACH

Check the Task Reward Budget for a concise, more visual overview.

==========

Workstreams

Deliverables: Workflow, Products segments, Conversational Modules, QA

Stakeholder: SDA-crew, Partner communities, Social Layer

Period: Sept-Febr'23

Budget: 788 x $50 = 39400

Workstreams:

1. WS1: Community Live classes & Production pipeline
2. WS2: Product Segments
3. WS3: Conversational Module Production
4. WS4: Review & Attract Conversational Network partnersConsolidate Materials in Abstract Version control

Key Milestone Sept '22-Febr'23

Delivery of the Social Appstore MVP, this is not a linear process, but to give an indication of focus:

1. Sept-Oct '22- Focus on Prio #1 items
2. Nov-Dec '22- Focus on Prio #2 items
3. Jan-Febr '22- Focus on Prio #3 items

Because of the product segment and module setup (see budget), we create the opportunity of creating a de-centralized workflows. By using design and progressions in live-classes we keep people updated and on track. We use our SDA Gitbook And Invision to create one source of truth.

Co-responsibility & Co-ownership is key in this project.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

SDA uses a 50$/hour co-production rate.  

Check our Social Appstore Task Reward Budget spreadsheet for a precise overview. 

Workstream - Setup Workgroups

Budget: None, covered in the SDA Live Classes budget / Class preparation.

Workstream - Product Segments

Budget: 360 hours x 50$ = $18000

Workstream - Module Production

Budget: 396 hours = $19800

Workstream - Peer Review Group

Budget: 32 hours x 50$ = $1600

TOTAL BUDGET REQUEST: $39400

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

New thinking for New Possibilities

• Colonial design thinking is getting old and doesn't fit the Social Impact missions we have. Combine & Prosper is the way forward.
• By letting communities like Konma, Littlefish, Handbrake, ADAO, join this Conversational UI Toolkit project we leverage benefit for and avoid overhead and churn.
• How we setup a contribution formula for Task Rewards is up to us, but must be decided on before project start, we also must bring our web3 collaboration hearts, as the funding for proposal is for motivational purpose, and not full production coverage
• On success, side-treasuries and revenue NFTs will fix many of our issues on the monetary front.
• Co-designing a Conversational UI Toolkit for a Social Appstore outside of the walled gardens must give social (r)evolutionary developers a genuine smile.

Workgroups, communities and members

The aim for this project is to let people work in workstreams that span communities. Using a UI Toolkit approach we can focus energy on specific element, enabling a decentralized workflow. We will use The Social Design Academy live classes (rsvp channel) to bring education and production together. Coordinating around product segments, components, and modules give us focus and spreads mutual understanding in communities.

Social Design Academy

This project is coordinated by Social Design Academy in live classes, so we don't create any double work of overlap. By bringing Product segments and modules to class we create focus and value for the communities in the Catalyst / Cardano ecosystem.

We also want the budget to go to participants to give gratitude to contributors. Reward is for motivation purpose, not full time / expense coverage. Getting the Social Appstore operational by buying Apps with ADA, is where the revenue for all contributors must be found.

Konma

Konma organization wants to provide resources and is willing to educate developers on missing skills. They are currently training eight Plutus developers. The permaculture principles of Konma, People care, Earth care, and Fair share, align directly with Social Design Academy.

"This is an amazing project and will definitely be a breakthrough in creating a great UX for web3 space. We are super excited to collaborate on this proposal. We will be more than glad to extend our support on the technical end with Konma Labz where we currently have students undergoing application level Haskell and Plutus training and our in-house blockchain, AI and ML expertise in developing these solutions.

-- Vinay Devabhaktuni, CEO 

Littlefish

Littlefish Foundation is an experiment on a new business model without borders, degrees, bosses, and 9-5 working hours. Instead of a hierarchical command order, individuals (as we call them Littlefish) with the same goal in mind create colonies. Colonies, in practice, will be able to form a reward-sharing mechanism between the members.

Motion UI developer skills & Cardano development skills are needed!

Beck, Dagwell, and other already indicated they want to help as well. If you would like to contribute and have skills in the transitional UI / Motion UI department, or at Cardano CLI level, please reach out in our SDA Discord.

Conversational UI Toolkit enables decentralized work.

By combining real world use cases, live classes we are confident that we can get people excited about directions for web3. By keeping the product in this proposal small. By re-purposing modules from the Ikigai Social App, into the Personal Brand / 36 questions for self understand, we found a novel way to reduce overhead, churn and add focus that spans communities.

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

I think we have to, because remediating a medium is not done overnight, but the goal is to create a revenue stream that goes into side-treasuries.

[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?

When F9 tally results are in, F6: In-wallet onboarding for ADAholders is done. I have too, taken long enough, the dangers of design research, you can always do more.

We track metric totals weekly and monthly from project start:

1. We track the development of the core technology stack. (features, commits)
2. We track the efficiency of our conversational module production pipeline (modules outputed / time)
3. We track the attendance of SDA Live-classes (Proof of attendance).
4. We track the System Usability score of our our Social Apps (Proof of Interaction).
5. We track development of modules in the Conversational UI Toolkit. (Proof of Production)

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

This new way of working across communities is quite unique. If we can make this work using a Conversational UI Toolkit approach, we found a patch towards true social impact through conversational software design.

We can show that Digital storytelling, Digital Wayfinding and Conversational Interactive Content can deliver true social impact.

We found a way for people to buy value from chain, and use these firts personal development goal apps as content through their conversational url.

Related Proposals:

Social Appstore MVP [SDA] [You are here!]

Launch Social Design Academy [SDA]

Catalyst Proposal Assistant [SDA]

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

This is a continuation of the Social Design R&D in fund6: In-wallet onboarding for ADAholders.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

I think a Social Design Session around these goals and which Social apps could be build to deliver measurable results would be a great idea, but that's a proposal in itself.

Setting up Personal & Collective development goals, which work from the bottom up, might be a good addition to power-up SDG's.