The State of Dapps 2020

The ETH community has continued to blossom, especially since our check-in at ETHBerlin last fall. Third party tools like Fortmatic, 3Box, Pinata, etc. are mature enough for drop-in integration with existing web apps.

We’re continuing to find that mass aDapption cannot be reached without the right user experience — connecting the value of blockchain tech to practical use-cases, in a way that normal users can engage with.

What is Secure myState?

We met representatives of Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology, Russell and Thad, and dove into areas that the State of Colorado is exploring. Who better to lead out on blockchain use cases than our government?

The primary challenges covered: secure document signing & uploading, user-to-user & user-to-state messaging, and future integration with Colorado’s digital identity within the myColorado app. We decided to tackle these challenges in one, seamless application ecosystem.

Demo | Figma | Github

So, what is it?

It’s a self-guided, educational user experience.

It’s a place where you can operate as a citizen, or a business entity.

It’s a document upload & verification system.

It’s an occupational license repository.

It’s a user-to-user & user-to-state messaging service.

It’s a one-stop-shop, for the people, by the people.

Instead of proposing new tools, Secure myState combines and implements existing blockchain integrations with a mindset of making government services easily accessible for everyone.

Product strategy

Get my job done

User experience of Dapps today can break down from early stages of use (account creation, & identity verification), all the way to completion flows (signing transactions, authentication, etc). Woah, say what? That’s a lot of blockchain-jargon and I just need to get something simple finished.

We used the jobs-to-be-done framework and built a revised information architecture around what the user needs (not what the cool new hotness technology is doing behind the curtain).

Provide me updates

We used motion and animation at key points within our Prototypes to communicate what the system was working on under the hood.

Tech stack

Our experience this year working with integrations is amazing. Last year, many of these tools were still in their infancy, and it was impressive to see how far everything has come. We could not have built Secure myState in a weekend, without each of these integrations solving a piece of the puzzle so well.

Our Stats