Blockchain and Beyond: Understanding Blockchains through Prototypes and Public Engagement
This work addresses the need for public engagement and understanding of blockchain technologies, but it is incremental as it builds on existing HCI and design methods without introducing new technical paradigms.
The paper tackles the challenge of communicating the social and societal implications of blockchains, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts by presenting an annotated portfolio of projects that use design and HCI methods to engage publics and explore topics like global supply chains and charitable giving, resulting in insights for designing blockchain systems and broadening participation.
This paper presents an annotated portfolio of projects that seek to understand and communicate the social and societal implications of blockchains, distributed ledgers and smart contracts. These complex technologies rely on human and technical factors to deliver cryptocurrencies, shared computation and trustless protocols but have a secondary benefit in providing a moment to re-think many aspects of society, and imagine alternative possibilities. The projects use design and HCI methods to relate blockchains to a range of topics, including global supply chains, delivery infrastructure, smart grids, volunteering and charitable giving, through engaging publics, exploring ideas and speculating on possible futures. Based on an extensive annotated portfolio we draw out learning for the design of blockchain systems, broadening participation and surfacing questions around imaginaries, social implications and engagement with new technology. This paints a comprehensive picture of how HCI and design can shape understandings of the future of complex technologies.