Block.one | Senior Visual Designer
Voice product design
Voice is a blockchain-powered social media application that rewires the formula in users’ favor — eliminating the hidden algorithms and cycling value back into users’ hands in the form of the Voice Token. The app allowed verified users to create short- or long-form content that would be published to the feed of their ‘listeners,’ who were incentivized to engage with the most compelling and highest quality content.
As the Senior Visual Designer at Block.one, I led the visual design of Voice from concept to launch. Designed for a mainstream audience, the goal was to foster authentic and civil discourse, and make social media fun again. We shipped web, iOS, and Android apps.
Voice brand and launch event
Voice was driven by a strong conviction that social media was due for an overhaul. We collaborated with a team from AKQA on Voice’s unique brand, including visual assets and copywriting. Key phrases, such as “Unfollow being followed” and “Social as it should be,” positioned Voice as the antithesis of everything existing social media was. These catchy expressions would permeate Voice’s launch event, marketing, swag, and the app itself.
Voice was launched at the #B1June keynote, held at the DC Armory. The community event, created in collaboration with Jack Morton, resulted in over 1,800 social posts, nearly 14,000 social interactions, and dozens of Voice beta tester sign ups.
Block.one leadership also determined that owning the voice.com URL was a strategically important investment, costing $30M of the $4B they raised in the previous year’s ICO.
The profile
Voice uses a special authentication system, based on government-issued IDs, to verify that everyone is an actual person. The platform required that profile pictures represent the user. Authenticity and transparency are core to the Voice experience, and ensure a safe, secure, and respectful community.
We theorized that user anonymity was a primary contributor to the toxic discourse found on existing social platforms, and the findings of our user research suggested that corporate accounts, sponsored content, and opaque algorithms hindered fluid and accountable dialogue. With Voice, no robo-mobs, catfish, or burner accounts were allowed.
The feed
The feed of Voice was bright and modern to let the content shine. In the MVP experience, users could easily jump into several categories of content, later to be replaced by a robust search. Users also had quick highlights of article-performance and opportunities to participate in "Voice It" — our in-app engagement game.
From the feed, users had simple access to their rewards wallet, notifications, and people search. Most importantly for iOS and Android, a prominent create content call to action was sticky in the bottom right of the screen to encourage posting with an easy tap of the thumb.
Creating content
Having diverse users and thoughtful content on a wide range of mainstream (ie. not just blockchain) topics would be the key to Voice’s growth and success. Though we introduced new concepts and paradigms in other areas of Voice’s functionality, we implemented a simple and familiar flow for creating content.
We landed on a content-focused experience, where elements and tools exposed themselves at the time of need, at a natural and organic pace.
The incentive
When others like your post, you earn Voice Tokens and your post gains visibility. The more popular your post, the more tokens you earn.
But what can you do with Voice Tokens? After making a comment on a post — you can Voice It! This means you can use your tokens to move your comment to the top to ensure that your voice is heard. If someone else raises their comment above yours, you get your tokens back (plus some extra).
The Voice It game creates a fun layer of competition around active content and encourages quality content and comment engagement.
Collecting rewards
In addition to earning Voice Tokens by creating content and participating in the Voice It game, everyone also gets a little every day just for showing up. Users can easily access their pending earnings from nearly every screen in the app.
The long-term vision was that Voice Tokens could be exchanged for other tokens, such as Bitcoin, outside of the Voice ecosystem. Ultimately users would profit from creating more and higher quality content, and Voice would profit simply from inflation of the Voice Token. It was core to the vision that Voice would not be supported by ads or any pay-to-play features.
Notifications
Notifications in Voice were an opportunity to educate and inspire users. A subtle red dot on the notification icon would alert users of new notifications. Icons and illustrations would help inform users of the type of notification, reinforce Voice’s branding, and keep users engaged with the platform. Popup tips were also included throughout the beta app to educate users on the more unique aspects of Voice’s UX.
Prototype
I created this prototype in Principle to provide an overview of the Voice experience and to illustrate some of the interaction animations that bring the brand and UI to life.