Blockchain Designer Profile: Yunyun Chen

Designer at Grid+

With over four hundred people on board and offices popping up all over the world in places like London and Dubai, things are moving so fast at ConsenSys — and the blockchain world in general — that’s it’s tough to keep up with all the movement behind the scenes. To offer a little more insight to the human side of the ConsenSys mission, we’re profiling many of the remarkable individuals that make up this ever growing whole.

Meet Yunyun Chen, Designer at Grid+

How did you get involved in blockchain?

It traces back to the Economist article, The Trust Machine. That’s where I got the “a-ha moment” that opened up my mind to the potential power of the technology and decentralization, and its possible applications in the world.

Growing up, I’ve seen the inefficiency and mismanagement that derives from centralized top down control structure. Applying blockchain to the world will reshape the interactions in societies.

I was unclear about what I was passionate about until then. The idea of working for a blockchain company that focuses on building a decentralized future came in. And ConsenSys was exactly the one I was looking for.

What are you working on now?

Currently I’m working on a future energy project — Grid+ .

Grid+ leverages the Ethereum blockchain to give consumers direct access to wholesale energy markets. This decreases costs, shifts production closer to demand, and moves us all toward a cleaner energy future.

One of the challenges is taking this to scale with customers who don’t necessarily know anything about blockchain. So we are building a system architecture and user experience that allows consumers to securely use cryptocurrencies without dealing with the blockchain complexity.

For example we introduced BOLT tokens for users who don’t want to be associated with cryptocurrencies while still allowing us to have a blockchain based cryptocurrency system. Each BOLT token is equal to 1 dollar and 100% backed by USD deposit. It is ERC20. So users can make deposits directly by their credit card and enable us to serve a much broader audience.

You can check out our current site here https://gridplus.io

What do you enjoy about designing in the blockchain space?

Transforming blockchain into life.

My passion in this space is that I have huge faith in a decentralized future. What I’m doing right now is building this future. Making it possible for most people in the world to enjoy the benefit of the blockchain technology.

What are some of the challenges you face when designing for users of decentralized apps?

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are new concepts to audiences. There are lots of blockchain specific actions and concepts that are very hard for non-technical people to understand. On the other hand, UX is all about making users able to use without thinking. This is a huge challenge but also opportunity for UX designers and researchers to achieve. There is lots of work to be done for UX designers to transform blockchain things into life. For example TX hash, address hash, Gas price, the volatility of cryptocurrencies…these are still cryptographic concepts. At the same time lots of infrastructure needs to be built and regulations need to be figured out. For designers, how to jump out of the “making things pretty” stereotype. Would a design driven DApp be more valuable to users? …and a lot more, we are still exploring.

What advice do you have for a designer new to blockchain?

Enjoy the challenge and have faith in the blockchain space. I believe that designing with love will reflect in your product. UX designers are the ones who add magic to dApps.