DOTS, short for Decentralization Off The Shelf, is a design project supporting practitioners in decentralization through interface, content, and service design. Our main resource is a library of tried-and-tested design patterns, along with a glossary of terms and a research report detailing the needs and gaps we see in the current ecosystem.
DOTS is hosted by Simply Secure, a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit supporting the usability of safety and privacy tools. We are actively seeking funding to assist in the development of additional critical resources in the decentralization space.
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Our Vision
Our mission is to develop UX components and tools that developers and designers can use to build better user-facing applications backed by decentralized architectures. To achieve this goal, the DOTS team – with the input and assistance of the larger community – is working to create a library of decentralization resources, assets, and design patterns.
Our pattern library is inspired by the architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander, co-author of “A Pattern Language.” Much like the way Alexander developed his patterns, our design patterns follow a structural template for clarity and convenience. Each pattern provides a design solution to a recurring design problem which we have observed and discovered in our hands-on research work. The library also includes examples, best practices, learning resources, and potential problems that may be encountered when using a given pattern in real-life development work. Ultimately, our design pattern library seeks to provide a roadmap to repeatable solutions and serve as a reminder of the countless capabilities of design.
About the team
- Designer
- Eileen advises teams and organizations on UX design and research. Her focus is on information architecture, content strategy, and interaction design -- or anything that helps people make sense of complex technologies. She works with numerous projects in decentralization and security, and enjoys facilitating relationships between the builders and users of technology. Her background is in analytic philosophy and mathematical logic, and she won’t stop
talking about demoing barbershop music.
- Researcher
- Karissa researches technical architecture design and its impact on usability, safety, and resilience. Her contributions to decentralized applications are relied on by at-risk users across the world. Previously, she led user experience for dat and hypercore, a decentralized data sharing tool and peer-to-peer protocol. Her background is in political sociology and data science, and she loves making weird musical art that touches your funny bone.
- Web Engineer
- Vincent builds elegant and performant data-driven web experiences and the tooling required to maintain them. With a long-time passion for decentralized software, he has contributed to several related open source projects and is currently working on a brand-new peer-to-peer framework for the web. When in Berlin you can meet him at the bi-monthly p2p-berlin meeting. He has a background in cognitive science and a soft spot for discordianism.
Ngọc Triệu
- Designer
- Ngọc sees design as an intervention to asymmetrical power relations. As a design researcher at Simply Secure, she imagines the futures of the world through lenses such as decoloniality and decentralization. Ngọc is passionate about user advocacy, co-creation, and equal access to knowledge(s). Her background is in design management, history, and cultures; and she loves doing kendo and taking a walk in the woods.
Keep in touch
We give talks and facilitate invite-only workshops, focus groups, and conference gatherings about decentralization! To get notified when we release new resources and get invited to events, sign up for our newsletter.
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Roadmap
Project scope and research design
Summer 2019
Workshops and interviews
Winter 2019
Publish research report
Spring 2020
Design pattern research
Summer 2020
Pattern library launch
Winter 2020
Shared decentralization glossary
Spring 2021
Explanatory resources about decentralization
Summer 2021
Comparative map of decentralization projects
Fall 2021
