Almost every time I post on here, some insult ends up in the comments. And I’m not even posting anything provocative. Would be nice to keep things civil. Thank you very much.
Christoph Ono
gbks@nosta.me
npub1kuc7...0eyw
Designer & developer. Helping improve bitcoin design with many others at https://bitcoin.design . I write a weekly update at https://gbks.substack.com . ✌️
The Open Tech Fund got killed over the weekend. It supported Signal, Tor, VPN access and lots of other good initiatives. I met some people from their team last year at a conference and asked if they were resilient to a second Trump term (they got almost killed during the first). Sad to see this happen now. 
Bloomberg.com
Trump Order Gutting Agencies Cuts Tools to Fight Censorship Worldwide
President Donald Trump’s weekend shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media has among its casualties a small — but influential — fund that he...
I used Penpot (http://penpot.app) for a presentation at FOSS Backstage last week. It worked great, with a few small hiccups. If you're not ready to go 100% Penpot yet, I'd recommend trying it for smaller design tasks (and give the team feedback). One step at a time.
Did my usual voting day routine. Show up at 8 right when they open and then go for a run. I hope we get a strong Germany (and Europe) to tackle our short- and mid-term geopolitical challenges and economic issues, while also staying on track on longer-term climate goals. And no more right-wing nonsense, please.
So, competitive authoritarianism is where this is heading? 
Foreign Affairs
The Path to American Authoritarianism
What comes after democratic breakdown.
Defining user experience design is pretty straightforward. Our life is a linear series of events. Things we had never heard of slide into our awareness. Maybe someone tells us about something, maybe we walk around and see something or someone, etc. You brain tries to make sense of it based on existing experiences, familiar patterns, etc. Via more exposure, you form a better understanding.
Apps are the same. Someone hears about it and wants to figure out generally what it's for. They see it and form a split-second opinion based on initial presentation. They decide to read about the features/benefits. They download it and use it, etc. At each step information is gathered and decisions are made. Maybe they get it right away, maybe they struggle. Maybe this happens in 1 minute, or over 2 months, etc.
As a user experience designer, you consider this general sequence of events, and the many ways people can experience it across all possible touch points, and try to create smooth pathways for people. And you typically have to balance user needs & wants, tech possibilities and limitations, business needs, human psychology, available resources, and other stuff. It's a huge balancing act that benefits from tight collaboration.
YMMV
Cool to see that Block has an OSPO (open-source program office, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Program_Office). 
Block - Open Source
New page about Human-Readable Addresses ("bitcoin emails" 😀) is live in the @Bitcoin Design guide (focusing mostly on BIP-353 and Lightning Address). Take a peek and let me know what you think. 
Bitcoin Design
Human readable addresses
Easy-to-use bitcoin addresses via DNS payment instructions and the lightning address protocol.
When a user sees this, what should their take-away and next actions be? 
My talk for FOSS Backstage about the Open Design Guide (http://opendesign.guide) was accepted. There are several other talks about the role of design(ers) in the line-up. Looking forward to it. 
FOSS Backstage 2025
Sessions
The Saving Satoshi case study in the
@Bitcoin Design Guide is live. It provides lots of background about this unique and ambitious project. I'm super thankful to and proud of everyone who chipped in (you're all ₿OSSes).
Bitcoin Design
Saving Satoshi
Discover how Saving Satoshi, an interactive RPG set in 2139, makes learning Bitcoin development engaging through storytelling and hands-on challeng...
Saving Satoshi
Saving Satoshi
Explore the mysteries of Satoshi and learn about bitcoin along the way.
Design should capture and express the essential properties of a product/technology. If users can't tell the difference between self-custodial and custodial bitcoin apps, then we're doing it wrong.
Especially open-source community-led projects are well-positioned to provide unique user experiences that companies and custodial solutions cannot offer due to their different goals, structure and incentives.
What time is it? It's PR review time.
Not sure what everyone is so excited about. My chart still shows that 1 bitcoin = 1 bitcoin. 
Here's a visual for a planned transaction visualizer in the Bitcoin Core App (Sparrow-inspired). Does that look useful to you? You can also try the work-in-progress web prototype:
Bitcoin Core App Prototype
For quick iteration and testing of designs.
Starter Packs are a pretty cool Bluesky feature (yes, it's basically a glorified list but framing matters). Is there a Nostr version? 
Starter Packs
Discover and grow your community through Starter Packs from Bluesky.
Starter Packs are collections of Bluesky Starter Packs and Profiles that you can follow to grow your community. And, you can use Starter Packs to m...