Designers wanted: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey wants a more user friendly bitcoin

By Adriana Hamacher

Bitcoin fan and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey believes that user experience  is the key to mass adoption for bitcoin. And, to improve it, he’s hiring designers to work with the cryptocurrency’s open source community.

Dorsey is also CEO of Silicon Valley-based payment services firm Square. On Monday, the company posted an advertisement on Medium, under the title Designing Bitcoin for Everyone.

“Square Crypto is making design part of our core, offering a unique opportunity for a designer to help shape the future of how bitcoin will be brought into the mainstream,” the ad said. 

Designers, it said, will get a chance to establish “the long term design vision of Bitcoin.” They’ll be working from within the Square Crypto team and engaging with the Bitcoin developer community. If consensus forms around a particular design approach to bitcoin development, Square Crypto plans to engage the key people to help these ideas happen. 

The UX problems faced by the bulk of blockchain tech are well known. Users must grapple with confusing new ideas—like private keys, block explorers and dapp browsers—just to do seemingly simple tasks. 

The industry is crying out for experienced UX professionals to make cryptocurrency tools and platforms easier to use, and draw in greater numbers of users. Dorsey, having created one of the most compelling social media platforms out there, is well aware of the power of good UX. 

The new ad also demonstrates that Dorsey’s growing involvement, and desire to make a difference in the Bitcoin community. 

In March, he announced plans to hire to hire blockchain engineers and a designer to work on “open-source contributions” to the bitcoin ecosystem, reporting directly to him. 

And, in the past, he’s made no secret of his admiration for the cryptocurrency, and has expressed a desire to give back to the open source community.

“I love this technology and community. I’ve found it to be deeply principled, purpose-driven, edgy, and…really weird,” Dorsey once tweeted.  

Whether the new designers will be weird or not, remains to be seen.

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