MetaMask

Usable security in web3

Company: Consensys, MetaMask
Date: 2021-2024
Role: Lead Product Designer, Product Design, Manager 
What I did: Management, Product, Research, UX, UI

Consentful transactions

Web3 is not just a technological shift, it's a paradigm change that empowers users with a level of control they've never experienced before. This newfound control, which initially revolves around financial value, is a game-changer in the digital world.

Permissions are the elephant-in-the-room usability topic debt for end-users in web3. Wallets mediate users' interactions between these permissions and the blockchain. Also, it must be their responsibility to give the user a chance to understand what they are giving permission to.

Why is consent a topic in a chapter about usable security? Because, simply put, there are no secure systems without consent. It's a fundamental principle that underscores the importance of the user's role in ensuring the security of the systems they interact with. Consent is the radical idea that one person must voluntarily agree to another's proposal or desires. Thinking about this while building technology is to apply a feminist perspective on active consent to the social information systems we work with. When we talk about consentful technology, we talk about having control over our digital bodies, which of course, include our data and, for sure, our money. It's about designing systems that respect the user's autonomy and empower them to make informed decisions about their digital interactions.

I facilitated our design teams to question our interfaces and how they could become interfaces enabling people to give real consent: If we build a transaction flow grounded in consent, what would it look like?

Intentional friction

Friction is not always a bad thing. Intentional friction helps users to stop and think about what they are doing. This is extremely important when consequences are not revokable. Also, relativizing the priority of buttons when human action is required breaks the don't make me think pattern. I've worked on reducing users' fund loss by helping users understand how sensitive secrets are and the implications of compromising them, prompting users to think more deeply about their actions. We designed for friction to encourage critical thinking in critical flows.

Permissionless trust

Lately, I've been pondering how we place our trust in computers, in systems that handle our data, and in whom we entrust our digital selves. It leads me to a larger question: Can machines generate trust? What's the issue with trust in Ethereum? Or, to phrase it differently, how do we trust strangers (often anonymous) when interacting within the same decentralized network?

Permissionless trust delves into the complexities of trust within decentralized systems, especially in the context of blockchain networks like Ethereum. It questions the nature of trust in a world increasingly mediated by technology, asks whether machines can generate trust and how we can trust anonymous peers within decentralized networks and explores developers' challenges in creating systems that facilitate trust without relying on central authorities. It emphasizes the intricate relationship between trust, security, and peer interactions in a permissionless environment.

The concept of permissionless is foundational to decentralized networks, where participation in usage, development, and governance occurs without central authorization. The discussion shifts to the role of trust in these systems, considering both technological and interpersonal dimensions. I expose the need for new trust protocols that empower users to form subjective experiences of trust without external mediation, questioning whether current security indicators might disguise corporate notions of trust. As a builder, do you consider how trust can be cultivated in decentralized systems?