New blog post with some recent work on Arké and the Bitcoin Core App.

Two miles an hour

Ease to the side

Banging my head against multi-device architecture via iCloud for Arké. Quite the puzzle.

GitHub

arke/Shared/Docs/Architecture/Multi_Device_Design.md at main · GBKS/arke

Arké - a bitcoin iOS app based on the Ark protocol prototype by Second. - GBKS/arke

Mocking up some transaction scenarios to help figure out the UI states in the new core app.

Having AI whip out the first localizations to German and Japanese. Probably going to be a bit goofy until a few more iterations in.

New version of Arké is on TestFlight. Transaction details are now a swipeable stack of cards to quickly flip through and add notes. Plus force move (unilateral exit) refinements, security hardening and bark package updates. Check it out. Share your feedback.

Update on stuff I worked on in the last month, which was primarily unilateral exit UX for Arké. It's coming along nicely.

Security

But not theater.

Just had to think of this mockup I made 3 years ago about escalating security reminders. A wallet starts annoying you hardcore if you store more bitcoin in it than is appropriate for the security it provides...

Just came across this design I made 1.5 years go for the core app to inform users about pending network updates (all made-up content of course).

I am with Ben Shneiderman on direct manipulation.

Prototyping a way to go more quickly through transactions and add details. What do you make of this stacked-card concept?

Interesting to see the term "Design Engineer" become more used. In 2004, when I first started working for digital agencies, before the term UX existed, the field was "Interaction Design", and todays "Design Engineer" was the "Interactive Developer". The agency I worked at had technical architects, backend developers, application developers, interactive developers, designers, and PMs and I always thought this split-up made a lot of sense. It becomes very clear when working directly with people who are really good in their areas. In more recent years, the idea of the full-stack developer was around, assuming that one person can just do it all, which never made much sense to me. No matter what labels you use, building good software (or anything really) requires various skillsets.

There might be more effort going into making bitcoin usable by agents than by humans.

And another Arké release is up on TestFlight: - Many improvements to force moves (unilateral exits) - Tag and contact editor revision - Settings - reorder and new Notification and Address Pattern views - X-ray iteration (remove balance, change VTXO list to graph) - Use real fee rates - Minor revision of the intro videos

If you like 10-minute walkthroughs of unilateral exit user experiences, then this one is for you.

Not really sure if it's a good idea to add stablecoins to bitcoin wallets. They drag in so much complexity that it may actually be more practical to have separate, lean & dedicated apps.

A nice thing about the Live Activity for unilateral exits in Arké, is that they show up on your watch, too. Left is a mock-up of the Live Activity on the phone, and right is a photo from signet exit testing over the weekend. Trying to make this a calm and convenient experience.

The X-Ray view, which allows more seasoned users to look at their VTXOs and other under-the-hood stuff is getting a bar graph visual. You can quickly see your VTXO structure and how long until refresh/expiry.

Arké defaults to mainnet these days, but creating a signet wallet is simple. Tap the test tubes on the cover screen. The background video switches to show the fancy lab guy. And creating a wallet will get you a signet one. The built-in signet faucet gets you some test sats right away. Everything else is pretty much the same as mainnet.

Adding and editing basic contact info is also getting a revision in Arké. Now back to testing and refining unilateral exits.

Adding and editing tags will be a bit nicer in the next Arké release. The old version was essentially AI slop.