Hello atproto builders — I’m a long time lurker and first time forum poster. I met some of you at Atmosphere conf in March, but for the most part have been thinking and talking about how I might get involved and support what’s happening here, rather than diving in. It’s been deeply heartening over the last couple years to see this community emerge and all the work so many of you have put in to make Atmosphere conf and all the other great atproto meetups and conferences—and community contributions!—happen.
Intros
I’ve personally had the AT Protocol brand and user experience on my mind a lot over the last couple years. Increasingly so recently. I was excited to be an early-ish user of Bluesky because I’d followed the Bluesky project from afar on Twitter as I mourned the gradual (and then sudden) enshittification of a platform I’d learned so much using. So I jumped at the chance when the Bluesky team posted invite codes to the beta. I’ve always seen potential in Bluesky, but more so in the atproto ecosystem, especially looking at what projects like Blacksky are doing (shout out to Rudy, Clinton, and the rest of the team!).
In early December, I pinged Boris to set up a call about AT Protocol ecosystem brand and user experience strategy. I have a background in design strategy concerns, and these are topics that pique my interest. We got a chance to chat live for the first time earlier this week, and Boris encouraged me to introduce myself on this forum and make known my intention to volunteer my time. So here I am!
Brand and user experience challenges to ATProto adoption
Many atproto builders have shared a wide range of exciting possibilities and ideas around how we might improve end-user perception and user experience of atproto ecosystem brand and UX elements. These are important topics spanning brand name recognition, perception, naming, the user interface and content design of Sign Up, and Sign In flows, and more. I believe that builders working together to coordinate language is a step in the right direction. But at the same time, coordinating shared language will only get us so far. Major step changes in brand recognition and UX will require further collaboration and a user-centered approach including deliberate research.
User- and human-centered perspectives
I’d like to propose a couple parallel paths we might walk through the lens of human-centered design. By facilitating and participating in human-centered design methods like workshops and studies, my hope is we can make progress on atproto ecosystem brand and UX fronts in a way that’s inclusive and encourages cooperation from a wide variety of stakeholders and individuals. AT Protocol serves many types of users. There are of course atproto ecosystem app end-users, but there are also atproto builders, business stakeholders, investors, standards organizations, and beyond. We can’t solve all problems for everyone all at once, but we can prioritize by focusing first on user types who have voiced pain points.
If I had my druthers, the two audiences I’d focus design research studies on first are 1. atproto builders and 2. atproto ecosystem end-users. You might wonder why I prioritized builders before end-users. It’s not my first choice, but here’s my reasoning.
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Atproto builders have a wide variety of needs, opportunities, goals, concerns, and aspirations. Some atproto builder needs are being met by Bluesky developer documentation and various atproto community efforts. But some needs are presumably not being met, especially related to atproto brand and UX recommendations for shared experiences. Generally speaking, we know who many atproto builders are, and can reach out to them directly to offer participation in quick-win research opportunities. We can run participatory action research on atproto builder needs quickly and efficiently.
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Atproto ecosystem end-users have an even wider variety of concerns and aspirations. Many users with certain interests and in certain contexts have high affinity for atproto apps or services. Many other users struggle with usability issues or questions around trust, safety, or otherwise. A lot of users and potential users don’t have awareness that atproto exists. Recruiting representative, diverse groups of atproto ecosystem end-users will take an order of magnitude more time and resources to recruit for UX research studies than builders. End-user perspective is paramount, but an organization (cooperative or otherwise) would likely need to steward that scale of study for it to be effective and sustainable. We might as well get our atproto ecosystem house in order first.
How I’d like to contribute
If any of this sounds interesting to the community, I’ll draft a UX research plan, set up a Discord channel, and schedule workshops with the builder community to frame research study goals and next steps, initially for a research study centering atproto builder needs. We’ll recruit collaborators, distribute a call for participation, and get this thing rolling in short order.
The output will look like a research summary synthesizing challenges and potential opportunities surfaced by atproto builders with respect to atproto ecosystem brand and user experience concerns. From there, we can schedule conversations for action to improve our situation and coordinate with a better understanding of atproto ecosystem needs related to brand and user experience.
Feedback
Let me know what you think and if you’d like to participate. At this stage I welcome feedback and questions here in this forum thread, or if you’d like, feel free to reach out to me directly. I’m @christian.bsky.social.
Thanks!
