Decent Patterns

*Camp CCC 2023*
*Preroll music*

Herald: Eileen is presenting to us decent
patents on UX library for

decentralization. welcome.
Eileen Wagner: Thank you so

much!
*Applause*

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EW: After that last lightning talk I feel

like I'm being very greedy with 20
minutes but maybe we'll just have more

time for questions. So I'm here to talk
about decent patterns in open UX library

for decentralization, this is a project
that I guess I started a few years ago

with a small team of co-conspirators,
some of whom are all in at this Camp

actually so you can meet us too and talk
more about this. I'm hoping this talk

would be interesting to those of you who
are building decentralized Technologies,

but of course also people who are
generally just knowledge workers right.

Like if you have done a library in your
life maybe you'll run into some similar

questions that I'm going to raise today.
Similarly I think it's an interesting

answer to the question what can designers
contribute an open source. This is

something that I've been thinking about
for a long time, so I think maybe maybe

there's some answers here. But why?Why
build one in the first place? So I'm a

designer, I work in decentralization
Technologies around that and whenever I

work with people, you know you you know
how it is, you go into a small team you

work with them intensely for a few months
and then you go to another team and you

go to an organization and then maybe you
get a chance to talk to another designer,

but basically you're kind of alone. And
but as I was working alone with all of

these groups there were just some
recurring questions that everybody had

right? How to permanently delete content?
This is a very very common question if

you're working P2P. How to store
encryption keys, where to store them if

you have multiple devices and you have no
Central Authority? How to ensure a

critical number of peers being online
right, that's so that the content can be

replicated. How do you communicate the
unusual privacy and security properties

of your new technologies? How do you
explain a Federated architecture, I think

we saw a lot of that with the migration
to Mastadon of how to do it and how not

to do it. And then finally overall like
very abstract questions, like how do you

even distribute trust and power, right?
Like what is the right way to do it? And

I see all of these teams struggling with
that and as I was working on it, I was

like surely someone thought about this.
You know surely someone has come up with

a general solution to these very general
problems. And I was no! I was sitting

there I was nope, nobody has really
written like bigger pieces of like

solutions to these problems and, more
than that, it wasn't just that I couldn't

find those resources that I needed for my
work. But it was also somewhat of a a

general adoption problem, something well
UX problems that caused adoption

problems. And by that I mean most of us
who are building these Technologies

decentralized or not. We're seeing that
as a vehicle to drive or at least support

sociopolitical change. And for
sociopolitical change to happen you

really have to have a critical mass of
people using it right? It doesn't mean it

has to be the whole world, but it means a
critical mass of users need to be using

this tool. And adoption also is actually
very well understood, like products and

services get adopted you know by some
very common, you know, systems. Like

people are infused about it and then some
people are Visionaries, they see it and

then finally the pragmatists the
conservatives and the Skeptics follow.

But you know that curve is very well
understood. And as I was working with the

folks, I realize that we really never
move much further beyond the first group

of people right? The people who want to
try out everything, who want to show you

a proof of concept and who are really
excited about it. But there was very

little movement forward. And in my view
one of the reasons for that is when you

have new technologies like this you don't
have a lot of you don't have a common

framework you can build into. When you
have new Concepts and everybody names it

differently right, every user new user
who has to learn this has to learn a

completely new framework, this is super
hard. So in my view when I was thinking

about adoption, I was really thinking
about something like design standards,

like what would a good standard be as you
are building this new technology. And by

standards I don't mean sort of generic
guidelines like always give people good

error messages, when you build a tool,
right? Like not like generic things like

that, but also not super specific things
like Apple's mobile interface guidelines

or anything like that. Like something
somewhere in the middle. What was that

middle right? And then I realized
actually that middle is also very well

understood. This this is what I had to do

to sign up for this talk. You know you
you go to this website, either you have

an account already, then you log in, or
you don't have an account and you need

one, then you register. I see another
pattern there, reset password right, you

lost your password you reset the password
. There is a language switch I don't know

if you can see it on the top right. On
the bottom you have like the the legal

bits right, like all of this is something
that's familiar to us just as users on

the internet. Like it's something we see
day in and day out, we're trained to sort

of understand how that user experience is
supposed to be. And in in that way we're

sort of learning a language. Learning a
language of how to interact with these

Technologies. And this idea of having a
language is also not new. This is a book

by Christopher Alexander 1979 a Timeless
way of building. It really details this

idea of how you can see different
patterns in the World. Christopher

Alexander Was An Architect, he was
meticulously documenting different ways

of looking at sort of buildings, Urban
infrastructure, small room like window

placement and he defined this idea of a
pattern as a careful description of a

perennial solution to a recurring
problem. So again buildings right? People

have lived in buildings for thousands of
years, you don't need to reinvent the

wheel when you're doing a new building,
you just look at existing buildings. And

this is what he was was doing, as he was
sort of collecting these patterns and

this is just one example for sort of
urban planning. Like these are the the

typical ways of how you can put buildings
together, right? Like a very simple idea.

He's just going around collecting
different ways of putting buildings

together. So what I and the small team
I'm working with wanted to do, was to

just sort of collect these things and see
how we are putting our language together,

how we could put our language together.
And with that I just want to show you

really the thing that we built. This is
decent patterns.com, it's a pattern

Library meaning that we have, you know ,
different categories and different

patterns, sort of explained to a general
audience. The first thing we had to come

up with, was a template for a pattern. So
I'm just going to show you really, this

is a pattern we called host roulette, of
course the name is the most important

thing, because that is the thing that
explains it, and people can refer to it.

So host roulette is addressing a design
problem. The design problem is when you

are signing people onto a Federated
system, you want to give people default

options, that's just good UX. But if you
give everybody the same default option,

it's not much of a Federated system
anymore, right? So host roulette very

simple solution, you randomize it. You're
putting the host on a roulette get I

don't know. So basically what you're
doing is is you're randomizing the sign

up process and you can achieve better
distribution of your users, and then we

so, we describe the solution and then
give an example of who's already doing

this. In this case this is nextcloud. And
then we again this is a short one but why

choose host roulette right? Like
understanding what contexts, what reasons

you would have to actually act ually use
such a pattern. Then we have best

practice, these are just tips from the
actual practice of implementing these

patterns, small discussion potential
problems with a pattern, a takeaway and

then some references, where you can learn
more. So this is the general template,

that we have for a pattern and
importantly here I think, we also have

the option for you to just edit it on
GitHub, so you can always just you know

join the actual GitHub and see what's you
know what what you might want to change,

what's inaccurate what you might want to
add. The other thing that we did, which I

think is also part of running a knowledge
base, is we did name categories, we

basically identified even more kind of
overall topics, that are interesting here

in decentralization, we think. Those are
sort of around roughly four different

categories, where it's different from
centralized paradigms and that's identity

and agency, moderation and curation,
sharing and permissions and syn and

status. I'm not going to go into detail
on you know, why they're important but I

think for any of you who have worked in
decentralization hopefully those

categories ring true. Yeah I think this
is just my very quick demo of the

library. You can play around in it
there's also you can just look at all the

patterns, if you want to see them all.
Again the most important part here may be

the naming of it, and then the other
things just sort of come themselves.

You'll see that there many, there are
very different levels of kind of yeah

generality here. Like some some of them
are very specific, like a visual idea but

some of them are I don't know I'm looking
at cautious optimism, that is an idea of

how to even build a protocol, like how to
think about trust in a protocol, things

like that. So we really have sort of like
very large ideas IDE and very small

ideas, all collected in this one pattern
Library. Next I want to talk a little bit

about like okay, so what have we learned
in doing this. I think one thing that was

really interesting for me to see, is when
we first started it we were very happy

about putting QR code verification in it,
it was a very immediate way for devices

to connect and to verify it, had great
security properties it had, it was just

very immediate. And then the pandemic
happened and QR codes were everywhere

right? Every like all the different apps
that you had like introduced QR codes, it

just really sort of accelerated that
development. And then you see things like

this I don't know if the video is going
to be very much visible, but this person

is in Atlanta and is just peeling off the
QR code from a parking ticket provider, I

suppose, and that's that's what happens
right? Like once you have an idea, that

is out there in the world and people
learn to use it, like it's actually first

of all, what a success story for QR
codes, but also here are the caveats here

are the consequences, that come with
that. So how do we make sure that the

patterns we do have, you know, I mean I'm
not saying we have to see though so far

into the future, but what kind of
critical discussion, what kind of context

can we actually provide people with who
are using this in their actual

development. The other thing we sort of
ran into is, a question around

descriptive versus prescriptive ways of
presenting the patterns, and by that I

just mean descriptive as a you know it's
a description or just showing you the

actual patterns, prescriptive is there is
some recommendation coming with it right.

So in a descriptive sense we have
collecting existing Solutions and

relating them to one another, so the work
that you do there is mostly just finding

the right level of abstraction and making
sure that the patterns you have in a

library are are described correctly. And
you're to inspire you're there to inspire

people you're not not more. In a
prescriptive world we have a library that

perhaps creates new solutions to these
problems, so you really are generating

new content. Maybe you're testing an d
validating them with you know real users

in the real world and you're making sure
that whatever you build is actually going

to work and not just uh hypothetical. In
that case then the library is to guide

people, to really offer some guidance and
recommendations. So we're still sort of

unclear about that right now, it's a
collection and we do think most of the

patterns we have are good, but that's
just our opinion right and we know as

designers that a lot of the things we
design aren't necessarily good until we

test them. So that's it from me. You can
check out decent patterns.com, we

obviously welcome contributions and also
shout out to the team raised there, we

have Vincent and KN also and if you're
interested in pattern libraries in

general, you should also check out I mean
they're General libraries that you can

just go to that have UX patterns, if
you're a designer and trying to learn how

to design. But there's also particular
libraries I really would recommend for

privacy security, for social media,
there's one about digital public spaces

being made right now. Of course there's
also anti patterns you should think

about, patterns that are deceptive. Those
are all great libraries that you should

check out just if you're into patterns in
general. And that said I would love to

answer your questions, thank you.
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*Ovations, WOWs*
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Angel: Okay, thank you Eileen, Applause
are fine but I thought maybe we uh take

the time for questions, we have time for
two because we're a bit behind schedule.

What are your questions to Eileen ? Does
somebody have a question?

Q1: I just one question not I'm really
cous about XI and I wanted to know if I

wanted to know more, because you gave me
a lot of links if I wanted to have to

know more about it where I could look
into it about what's new because like

what look what you did was really is
already Edge but I'm really curious about

the world field because it's as a
developer it's really interesting for me

yeah, I think I mean so those are good
links to look if you'r

e into patterns
E: I think it's always difficult to think

about how patterns fit into the
development process, because it's very

abstract and sometimes you do need a
designer to help you actually put the

pixels in place right, like it's it's a
bit of a different type of work. But if

you're interested in UX in general like
they're awesome resources. The one that I

like a lot is the interaction design
Foundation. They have a lot of really

good courses and it's like a foundation
in Denmark that just sort of does good

work and it's sort of very classic and
and well presented I think.

Angel: We have time for one more
question. Anyone? Okay then I'll say

thank you Eileen again go talk to elen if
you have other questions it was nice to

have you
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*Applause*
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*Camp 2023 Postroll music *
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