W4/5 — Ideation
Before we dive into actually building something, if we were to explain blockchain using blockchain, I really wanted to clarify what our focus point is, the aim of our project and why. To do this, I continued with literature review to gain more insights and to see what the current debate is around the technology.
Lit Review
From the reading called, Understanding the Blockchain Oracle Problem, I have noticed the technology is not purely decentralised as it still uses a third party organisation called Oracle. Oracle is a that connects two different systems in order to transfer the datas. As blockchain is very dependent on this technology, it has brought back centralisation into the system. It notes that the organisation can decide on which information is retrieved or not, creating a biased stream in blockchain. Other papers state blockchain as a trustless machine as it runs without people. Saying it is the digital connectivity, linking one another seamlessly. From this, loads of questions came to my mind. What is trust? Is Blockchain trustless? Is it decentralised? What are people trusting?
Fig 1. Literature Review. Image by Sue.
Ideation
Fig 2. Brainstorming blockchain. Image by Sue.
Fig 3 and 4. Two Ideas. Image by David.
I started with brainstorming, writing all the things that came to my mind. From this, I wondered if we can focus on one specific aspect which is the consensus mechanism. I found this area interesting since from the previous literature review it states that blockchain is a trustless machine that runs without people. However, in order for blockchain to be decentralised, the technology requires consensus and it is the group of people who run the mechanism to hold the network together. Even relies on people, making the community of the validators a crucial element. This made me think if we can make this apparent to the blockchain users to create a stronger community and blockchain is more than a mathematical component.
Tutorial Feedback
After another tutorial with John, a lot of questions came to my mind. If we were to explain the simplicity and the complexity of the Blockchain, who are we explaining it to? What is the content and which area specifically are we explaining? Also, what are they looking at and experiencing? What do we want them to think or do during the experience? There were so many unsolved questions that struck me.
Fig 5. Ideation. Image by Sue.
Complexity Bucket
I started to organise the complex attributes of the Blockchain Technology into a bucket to specify which area we are tackling to scope. Also it was a way to find the contradictory aspects. There were interesting positions of the technology where the characteristic of transparency of data / transaction is accessible to everyone in Public Blockchain but in fact most importantly these aspects were all hidden, not transparent or apparent. It was obvious that all these massive aspects are up in the clouds, not visible to the users.
Fig 6. Complexity Bucket 1. Image by Sue.
Fig 7. Complexity Bucket 2. Image by Sue.
Crazy 8
Before the brainstorming session with Mor I had a long feedback time. We were visualising and drawing as we spoke. This gave me more clarity where I stand with a critical perspective of blockchain. When I mentioned the conversation with Guy from TARR regarding the environmental issues of blockchain, she questioned if we can still have our standpoint as he does through our project. Also she pointed out as there are various aspects we touch based on, it is time to specify what attributes we would like to tackle. Mor suggested to start on visualising and materialising each area which might lead to something interesting.
In Mor’s session, we did a Crazy 8 with other peers to receive fresh viewpoints to avoid ourselves to stay in the same stage but to widen our thoughts and potentially find out what we have missed. We gave others a brief background of the project and asked specifically to think about the values they would like to share on blockchain. Most ideas were about sharing their thoughts before they forget and to look back later. However, they weren't sure if they would like to keep them on the system forever and let everyone have the access to view. Since our concept was very broad and blockchain itself was such a complex idea for them to grasp immediately, they struggled a lot. From the session, most of the feedback was to start and focus on making the aim of the project solid.
Fig 8. Session with Mor. Image by Sue.
Feedback
As we explained our concept, Wan pointed out if it was really necessary to deliver the pros and cons of blockchain technology as it can be found on the internet easily. She then questioned if we can rather bring in the criticalities to the design, raising our voice and see what people think about it. We had another discussion with Greg going through all the research that we have done. He immediately pointed out that it is the obscurity and complexity that we are dealing with in terms of blockchain and it should be the brief for the project. He said every emerging technology has both sides but it's more of discovering a way how we can visually communicate or experience the hidden aspects - finding our own language to communicate to become a design project rather than a research project. Greg’s feedback really helped a lot after all the struggles.
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Bibliography
Sun, J., Yan, J and Zhang, K. (2016) ‘Blockchain-based sharing services: What blockchain technology can contribute to smart cities’, Financ Innov, 2(26) . doi:10.1186/s40854-016-0040-y
Tang, Y. et al. (2019) ‘Ethics of blockchain: A framework of technology, applications, impacts, and research directions’, Information Technology & People, 33(2). doi:10.1108/ITP-10-2018-0491
Caldarelli, G. (2020) ‘Understanding the Blockchain Oracle Problem: A Call for Action’, Information, 11(11). doi:10.3390/info11110509