I believe that most of the proposals and ideas for “fixing” challenges are well intended but not focused at the root. If we focused on improving the UX of submitting a new profile we can mitigate the majority of complaints.
The risk here as we grow is that people making mistakes don’t just effect themselves. They will damage public perception by going out and complaining about losing a large sum of money.
I wanted to share some of my ideas based on a couple decades of building tech products. This is for just the Submitting Profile story. Basically it needs to be built for a five year old, and provide the tools and requirement for them to do their own validation.
Allow the user to record the video in the browser (or even make them).
Show margins on the screen to keep yourself inside of.
Detect background noise / mic volume.
Allow the user to take a selfie in the app. Be intelligent (ID verification services have already perfected this)
Show examples of how you should look.
Detect bad lighting / missing facial features (like pupils), lots of great APIs for this
On submit run some checks on the video server side.
Audio levels
Possible voice recognition looking for the key phrase
OCR text and compare it to the public key (see if a sign matches the same address)
Resolution check / etc
Before signing transaction
Warn user that failed registration will result in losing entire deposit
Play the video in loop one side of screen
On the other side of screen force them to answer some questions:
Type the ETH address you see in the video (don’t even show them the address they are about to sign with)
Did you say the phrase exactly yes / no
Can you see your entire face yes / no
etc
Any other ideas I can add?
edit: Thinking again this morning, this would probably best as a mobile app.
It would be good to design and publish some KPIs on failure rates etc so that we can see that the system is improving. If the community can design and implement a large number of improvements it should be possible to keep failures due to human error to an absolute minimum. Monitoring the overall situation will help us see new patterns in how the system is operating.
- acting without data is insanity. I am working on a project to aggregate and index data. Being able to apply that to KPIs and other health indicators is just good product management. Once I get it going I will share a Metabase instance (or something similar).
Would it be valuable to say that you can’t challenge a newly vouched application until at least 4 hours has passed? That might stop the predators?
I think the bottom line is you have so really SCARE the applicants and make them realise that if they get it wrong the penalty is total and final. No second chances. If you are not comfortable with this, or cannot afford to lose the deposit, then you are STRONGLY advised to cancel your submission.
Yes, users need to be SCARED. You can’t possibly over dramatize this. Just like early crypto days, you had to scare people. You had to say WE ARE NOT A BANK, IF YOU MESS THIS UP YOU WILL LOSE IT, NOT A PERSON ON EARTH CAN REVERSE IT.
I disagree with this concept of predators. If we start moving the line it is a slippery slope that never stops - and in the end without solving the cause we will only fuel divisive hate between very important participants in the protocol (humans, devs, jurors, vouchers, etc).
Yes I see what you mean about avoiding division, and it makes total sense. That appears to be the problem at the moment. But on the other hand it’s clear that there is a growing problem with people who are starting to ‘game’ the system (e.g. vouch to challenge) which if not predatory, is definitely malevolent. I guess I don’t know what you call this demographic without risking division?
Hey Justin, I built a prototype of an improved UI, including your ideas and current rules. I would appreciate your feedback. Im not a designer but I think there’s a big opportunity of making it more intuitive.
Looking forward to the community feedback.
If there’s any designer that would like to contribute let me know.
For the review of the video I would repeat the requirements from the photo rather than refer back to them - more explicit.
The submission button page should again have a warning. This is the irrevokable step - a faulty submission photo or video will lead to loss of deposit without recourse.
- acting without data is insanity. I am working on a project to aggregate and index data. Being able to apply that to KPIs and other health indicators is just good product management. Once I get it going I will share a Metabase instance (or something similar).
