Here are some thoughts about tipping on Brave. I'm a big fan of the project and the team and I mean no disrespect. Please excuse any excessive candor.
- React to tipping as matter-of-factly as Twitter reacts to a like
- Allow zero-click, action-based auto-contribute (tip-on-like, tip-on-RT)
- Set up browser-wide default tip amount, save when changed
- At most one-click tipping always
- Allow a comfortable (eg. monthly) window for undoing tips
- Enqueue all tips by default; make final or cancel on Rewards screen
- Enable offline tipping (comes for free with queueing by default)
- Enable tipping without funds ("adding to shopping cart")
- Give me full visibility into where my money is going (audit log)
It is the opposite of a big deal.
And it should be treated that way. Don't cover half my screen with a banner and offer me to tweet and everything. Just get out of the way as soon as possible so I can do it again.
Ideally, when I tip, the BAT triangle on the address bar (which I'm already getting trained to glance at to see if a website is a verified publisher) unspoofably does a little dance (like the sub-second Twitter heart animation) and that's it.
Tipping is like:
- Liking
- Faving
- Starring
- Clapping
- Upvoting
It's an impulse action that satisfies a need for gratitude / reciprocity / gifting.
People do copy urls and tweet on their own when the situation affords it, no need to add friction to enable that use case.
If you have to choose between making it easier to tip again vs share the fact that you tipped, err on the side of more tipping.
Let the happy publishers who are watching the extra-money-due-to-reduced-friction come in be your loudspeaker.
Tipping in places that already have their own appreciation / signal-boosting mechanism should take zero extra actions if the user wants it so.
It shouldn't be the default, but I want to set up action-based auto-contribute: "On twitter, by default, tip 1 BAT for every like I give. 10 for every RT."
This on top of the time-spent auto-contribute that already exists. Time-spent doesn't work for apps with multiple publishers on the same page like Twitter / Reddit / Hacker News / Stack Overflow.
And no need to indirectly infer intent when the user is making it explicit already.
Amazon sells high-value physical goods that need shipping address, credit card, billing information, deciding what kind of shipping you want, etc, etc. It's a nightmare.
And yet, they go the distance and do eveything in their power to remove all unnecessary action, avoid all repetition, save every detail once and remove all anxiety. One-click Ordering(tm) is genius.
Tipping is comparatively trivial and there's no excuse for it to ever take more than 1 click or keypress.
When setting up the Brave Wallet, the user can define a browser-wide default tip amount which can be changed on individual cases.
When the user changes the default for a specific tip, they can be given the option to save that amount for future tips either to that publisher, on that platform ("use this amount for every future RT"), or browser-wide.
Be like Bezos. (On this specific context. Do pay your employees well.)
Undoability is the universally tried and true way to remove anxiety and put the user in control. 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
Don't ask for confirmation. Let them undo it later.
Asking for confirmation on an impulse action is only going to get an (annoyed) impulse confirmation. If they are going to think twice at all, they will do it later when system-2 brain kicks in again.
You can undo a $40,000.00 Tesla 7 days later. Tipping should be a no-brainer.
There is already a monthly queue for recurring tips and auto-contribute. This can be extended to every kind of tipping.
After I zero-to-one-click tip someone, the tip goes into the queue and by default stays there until the next monthly cycle.
If I want that transaction to be final sooner, I go to the Rewards screen and click "send now."
If I change my mind, I click "cancel."
This is a critical enabling factor for allowing defaults safely and removing obtrusive pre-tipping confirmation dialogs and post-tipping confirmation banners.
It also enables offline tipping, which is huge.
Currently, if I'm offline, Brave says my wallet balance is zero, says all tip amounts are worth about 0.00 USD, and tells me "not enough tokens, please add funds" when I try to tip even though I have a full wallet.
Always-enqueue solves for anxiety, user control, and #asyncUX all at once.
Oh yeah, another win for queues: I don't have to have funds to tip. I can go around tipping, maybe get a little warning when funds run out, but keep enqueueing tips nonetheless.
When I look at my rewards screen, I see how much I need to add to my wallet for pending tips to go through. That is a very good incentive to fill up!
It's like adding books to a wishlist or items to a cart. You can figure it out later.
I want to see a log of every tip to every publisher ever, regardless of whether it came from deliberate tipping, time-spent auto-contribute, action-based auto-contribute.
Ideally, I can see a snapshot of what the tab looked like when I did it, how many BATs I gave, how much they were worth in USD at the time, etc., etc. (That's also a great place to put a tweet button for individual tips.)
That's all I have to say about that :)
And I think some of these things could help. I don't have the full picture and I'm probably wrong about some things, but if you made it this far I'm very grateful for your time and for taking these thoughts into consideration.