[DAO:8fd93a5] Designing Visual Content for DAO Documentation

by 0xd7ea7ce3b197e31415aa18d19f8b61b1d4887bc0 (Po)

Should the following $2,100 grant in the Documentation category be approved?

Abstract

The Decentraland DAO is one of the most interesting, and inadvertently complex platforms in the virtual world industry. The complexity of the DAO often makes it difficult for new users to get a strong grasp of how the DAO is structured, and where Decentraland gets its different kinds of leadership.

Currently, our documentation is fully centered on text-based documentation, with only a few resources being available to users who are visual and kinesthetic learners. I want to change this.

I have a plan to contribute to Decentraland’s documentation by developing visual, yet detailed posters for the DAO, which can provide a new medium for individuals to better understand the platform.

Grant size

2,100 USD in DAI

Project duration

3 months

Beneficiary address

0xd7EA7CE3B197e31415aa18d19F8b61b1d4887BC0

Email address

marina.plotnikkova@gmail.com

Description

Decentraland’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) plays a vital role in governing and defining the rules of the virtual world. However, the current documentation system primarily supports text-based learning, leaving visual and kinesthetic learners at a disadvantage when attempting to learn more about the space.

My proposal aims to bridge this gap by developing visual and detailed posters that illustrate the complexities of the Decentraland DAO in an engaging and visual manner.

Why This Project Should Receive Funding:

Enhancing Accessibility: Visual documentation will make the Decentraland DAO more accessible to a wider audience, including those who prefer visual learning as opposed to detailed, text-based learning. This increased accessibility may lead to greater community engagement and participation in the long term.

Improving Understanding: By transforming complex text into clear visual representations, the posters can foster a better understanding of how the Decentraland DAO functions, and may inadvertently lead to better decision-making from the DAO in the long-term. This may lead to the empowerment of users, who can be comfortable interacting with the platform with greater confidence.

Supporting Educational Initiatives: These visual aids could become essential educational tools for newcomers, developers, and educators alike, supporting a variety of learning preferences and needs.

Brand-Themed Content: This visual content is also useful material for our social media channels to explain and promote our current structures, which will be useful content for several different platforms.

Problems That This Project Will Solve

Complexity Barrier: The inadvertent complexity of Decentraland’s DAO can be intimidating to new users. Visual aids can actively break down these barriers and make DCL-focused information far more digestible to the average DCL user.

Lack of Diverse Learning Resources: Currently, DCL’s documentation is tailored mainly for those who learn best through reading. By incorporating visual learning, this project will satisfy the needs of diverse learning styles.

Benefits to the Decentraland Platform

Increased Community Engagement: More comprehensible and appealing resources may attract more users to engage with the platform, growing the Decentraland community.

Strengthened Governance: By improving understanding and accessibility, more community members may feel empowered to participate in governance, thereby enriching the democratic process within the Decentraland ecosystem.

Boosting Educational Outreach: These visual resources can be leveraged for workshops, tutorials, and other educational initiatives set up by both the DAO and the Foundation; strengthening Decentraland’s position as a leader in virtual world technology.

Conclusion

This project is not just about adding new content; it is about making Decentraland more inclusive, accessible, and understandable. By funding this project, we can take a significant step towards building Decentraland-focused documentation that resonates with all types of learners, reinforcing its place as a pioneering platform in the virtual world industry.

Roadmap and milestones

I foresee this process taking a maximum of three months, which includes the ideation phase, designing phase, and ultimately, the delivery phase of the project (with room for organized, constructive feedback).

The first month of the project will be very ideation heavy, where I will commit to collecting as much information and feedback as possible from the community, including feedback related to the chosen brand style, coloring and organization of information/deliverables.

One key part of my work will be related to summarising and prioritizing different parts of our docs portal, specifically organizing documentation related to the DAO Overview, the DAO Grants Information, and the DAO User Guide. Once this information has been summarised and prioritized, I will then shift my focus on identifying key illustrations I can work on that will aid in better visualizing Decentraland’s systems and the high-level organization of the DAO. These illustrations will be an important addition to the posters; providing the community with illustrations of our systems.

The second month of the project will focus on design work, which will feed into half of the third month of the project. I will aim to prioritize communicating back to the community at all times, to ensure I can improve on feedback.

By the end of the third month, we should have these static posters & illustrations done, with the aim of having content we can further build on in the future.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2 Likes

I usually would vote yes for something like this as it can be beneficial, and the ask is not much. However, you are proposing to do all this with having, from what I can tell, 0 VP, 0 involvement in the DAO, or involvement in DCL? Correct me if I am wrong but if you haven’t been involved in this DAO (or any other?) why are you the person to do this? I understand the first month will be deep learning, but don’t you think it would be better received having done some of that already and participated in the DAO? I will abstain instead of no until you are able to provide more information. You do have some pretty sharp looking posters I must say. Thank you.

Having visual representations of the DAO documentation can be helpful, especially with something like an organizational chart… but are we making assumptions as to the pain points and benefits? Is more research needed?
Have any of these pain points with our documentation been expressed by any new users or active members?
For those doing educational outreach, how is our current documentation serving you and what could be improved? Are you creating your own visuals?

This is a good point, but I feel this could be better executed thru the bidding and tendering process. We could hammer down exactly what, if anything, we would like to visualize and perhaps see some portfolio work before choosing someone to take on the task.

2 Likes

can we see your portfolio?

3 Likes

Do you have any examples of what you are describing? As an educator, I agree that having a variety of content types make information more accessible. Not everyone receives data in the same way. Have you done any preliminary mock-ups to demonstrate in a visual way what you are describing.

I think that would be a compelling method to prove your point. To use visuals in getting your point across that visuals are needed instead of just words.

2 Likes

I see questions that were asked 3 days ago that remain unanswered. I’ll vote no for now.

1 Like

Hey @Existential14! Thank you for your question, which given the DAO’s landscape, is entirely valid!

I appreciate your expressed concern, and I hope I can ensure you that I’ve been immersing myself in a comprehensive study of DAOs, and I felt Decentraland will be a very interesting space to learn more, due to it’s decisions being linked to a 3D immersive space!

I’m personally an artistic, technical person, and not very sociable. I don’t feel I will ever really be a community member that will be engaging in political or governance discussions, which tend to be quite heated topics in this space at times. I do however have a specific set of skills, which I believe I can utilise to this community’s benefit, which is where I got the confidence to submit this proposal for the community’s recommendation!

I feel that being distant from the DAO’s political decisions is both a weakness and a strength. As a graphic designer and marketer, I do feel it’s important to provide a good representation of the community without any form of personal bias, and I feel I can do a good job as a designer in properly articulating and visualising the DAO’s message and structure.

Here are some design drafts I’ve put together in the process of setting out my mood board. I am using the DAO’s documentation as a quick reference for these design brainstorms:


Please note, the content of these draft posters is completely experimental, and the aim was more the development of a style, as opposed to the development of the used content.

Once again, as a professional, I much prefer being engaged on my skillsets, and I’m afraid many of the DAO’s discussions are outside of my area of expertise. Visual documentation however is something I feel I can do confidently, and I’d love a chance at pushing this idea forward!

Once again, thank you for your time and consideration, and I’m more than happy to answer any other questions you might have! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Hey @CheddarQueso ! Thank you for your question!

I am definitely making my own visuals for this project; and I feel you identified the pain points for this project extremely well! An organizational chart is part of my ‘illustration’ deliverables, and it is there where I will require a bit more research and help from individuals with more experience/knowledge in the community.

I personally found the DAO’s documentation to be technical, and very text heavy, with a lack of flowcharts or visual representations of what that information might mean. Transposing the written documentation to easier-to-digest posters is an easy first step (which is what I used to begin my mood board/design drafting prior to submitting this proposal). However, I’m finding it harder to imagine and visualise the relationships between different squads, committees and their links to the DAO itself.

My main challenge will be representing entities like the DAO Committee and SAB, and outlining their respective roles and responsibilities in something of a flowchart, which also incorporates squads like the facilitation squad and the grant support squad. This is where I will need more help, and where a lot of my deep learning will be.

Here’s the link to my portfolio: https://marinaplotnikkova.myportfolio.com/
Here’s a few more images I brainstormed:

1 Like

Hey @Sango !

You can find my portfolio linked on the ‘Personnel’ and the ‘Budget Breakdown’ sections of the grant!

For ease of access, you can jump into the link here: https://marinaplotnikkova.myportfolio.com/

Thank you. You have given very professional and thought out responses to the questions set before you. The examples you’ve provided look fantastic. I think because you have mentioned some very specific things within the DAO, it shows you do know a little something and how complex it might be. I cannot blame you for staying outside the realm of participating and I applaud you for having the courage to attempt this. I am going to give you a YES vote, minimal as it maybe, for those reasons. I wish you the best on this endeavor and if passed hope to see the value provided. Thank you.

Thank you for your replies and your portfolio is impressive. Some of us are SME’s (subject matter experts) and for this type of work your artistic and technical background would be a great fit. The grant request amount is reasonable, and since some are visual learners, I would be interested in what you can create. I will be changing my vote from abstain to yes and I would encourage others in the community to revisit this initiative.

1 Like

Hey @AwedJob
Thank you for your comment.
Please see some of pictures I brainstormed below.
you can also check my portfolio: marinaplotnikkova.myportfolio.com




1 Like

Hey @Canessa Sorry for the delay; I was struggling to properly connect my wallet to my forum account. Maybe another thing we should add to the visual documentation list! :laughing:

I think one telltale sign that you’re outside of the DAO is the price you allocated to the grant in exchange for your services. I do feel the DAO has been ‘in-funding’ amongst its community members for far too long, with minimal external influence from industry experts.

I really agree with @DedHeadJ with her point on subject matter experts, and it’s really nice to see a well-planned grant, that’s technical and ‘profession-specific’ being led by someone outside of the DAO. Moreover, I do feel you’ve done good work in organizing your ideas and structuring a preliminary proposal that fits specific needs of the DAO.

Might I add however @MarinaPo; you have an extra unintended responsibility on your shoulders that you might not have exactly asked for; your grant proposal is a rare one being led by someone who is an ‘outsider’ from the perspective of the DAO, and I feel you have a chance at showing this community that it’s funds are not necessarily reserved to the funding of community members, but rather an allocation of capital which can be used to advance the state of the platform; by community members and subject matter experts alike.

It’s a yes from me. Looking forward to seeing this develop!

1 Like

Hey @Seanny
Thank you for your thoughtful message. I appreciate your perspective on the allocation of funds within the DAO and the importance of involving subject matter experts from outside the community. It’s encouraging to hear that you believe the grant proposal aligns well with the specific needs of the DAO.

I understand the significance of my role as an outsider leading this grant proposal, and I’m committed to demonstrate that valuable contributions can come from a diverse range of sources. My aim is to leverage my expertise and insights to enhance the platform’s development and showcase the potential for collaboration between community members and external specialists.

I’m excited to take this opportunity to contribute to the advancement of the platform. I look forward to sharing the progress of the proposal’s development and achieve the shared goals of the DAO. Thank you once again for your comment.

On the one hand I agree with @Seanny that the DAO has a habit of supporting people from the same community, and I like to see that people who are not involved in the DAO can also agree to create in Decentraland.

On the other hand, I also share the opinion of people like @Canessa , who have a lot of experience analyzing proposals in the DAO and indicate not having a DCL name or not having participated enough in the community as warning signs, I am also reluctant to approve proposals. grant to individuals who have not demonstrated a full commitment to Decentraland

As @Existential14 says, if @MarinaPo was already used to Decentraland content, he shouldn’t do the study process for the first month, which I interpret as making the project a bit more expensive (which I want to emphasize is NOT expensive).

In any case, due to my profession, I understand very much the visual impact that a project can have, as well as the brand image and related issues, I think that Decentraland has neglected these points.

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I almost forgot to say that I find the images very spectacular. :100:

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Yeah, someone intimate with how the DAO has been working as of late would have asked for the entire category budget and not bothered replying to any of the questions with examples of their work.

My only objection is “The treasury DAO” is a clunky way of describing the DAO.

2 Likes

If I understood correctly, the images are just drafts, with the design being more important than the used context/words at this stage. Pretty certain it’s just a typo, which was meant to be “The DAO Treasury”

2 Likes

Designing Visual Content for DAO Documentation

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0xfb1afa4dc069ffb47b19dbee196045d508fcd5a2)

Vesting Contract Addresses: 0xbd5E1365d42C643e3DFB5CADe1865563272aC829