Goal: To educate my sceptic workmates on the power of blockchains. To explain what a blockchain actually is.
Audience: Co-workers. Some who regard blockchains as a scam, some with immense internalised jealously about not getting rich via Bitcoin. Some who are actually intrigued about what they are. All with some technological knowledge, but all unsure how a blockchain works.
Tone: Educational, but fun!!!
Possible pain points: Co-workers refusing to do what their told. Have added in error messages to accommodate any eventuality.
The Result: http://www.danielwinters.co.uk/blockchain
I wanted to start off with an introduction to blockchains and pre-empt any cycncism about it purely being a bitcoin scam. I found links to actually reputable businesses using / thinking about using them for professional means. I also saught to lower their expectations just a bit. The majority of blockchains hold incredibly boring data and I wanted them to approach the rest of the page with that firmly in mind. Not the fact that a Bitcoin is now worth £15,000 and they could have bought it for a fraction of a penny 10 years ago.
Standard error message whenever someone doesn't type in a name and / or data for the block. Made sure to tell them what is expectated and, more importantly, why it is expected.
Set it so that the page will jump down to the blocks below once you've added in your second block. Hopefully makes it easier to see that other blocks are being added. Standard error message again, though this time with a nice little joke. This one actually worked with a few of my co-workers, who had assumed I hadn't foresaw this coming.
Made sure to change the colour once they had actually edited the text. Added an explanation as to why Blockchains use this system, and the hashes to further demonstrate what has changed. I've added an instruction at the bottom of this block to look to the end of the chain for the next step, as Block 4 is more of an extended explanation of the Blockchains security measures. I felt that those who are more interested will find it themselves, naturally, while everyone else will be able to skip to the end and not get bogged down in the techanical details.
Again, another little joke. I thought it was a funny concept for someone like Nakamoto to emerge from hiding to write a bit of text for my site, and so used to it to further explain the security of the blockchain and give a little history lesson as well. Satoshi Nakamoto has to be the most intriguing figure in the Blockchain world also, and I thought that those who were interested could use his wikipedia article as a gateway to wider reading.
Interestingly, even though that Satoshi Nakamoto is obviously a Japanese sounding name, there are some theories that he is in fact English and using a fake name. Some theories also posit that Nakamoto is actually an entire team of people, all using the same name to throw potential investigators off their trail. Regardless, this is why I used the 'British' terms of 'clever clogs' and 'bloody secure.'