Idea name: Username and profile picture not linked to ENS. Description: To be able to display your name and profile picture without having to register an ENS in order to improve the experience of using chats. Use case: As a user, I want to define a name and profile photo to display my contacts without having to change the ETH address, so that it is inviting to non-technical users and cryptocurrency enthusiasts and even inexperienced with encryption. Target user: Everyone who wants to have a chat experience similar to other modern messengers. Why this is important: I believe it is possible to define a username and profile picture without having to register an ENS to replace the ETH address. A current application that is working on this is Session; it is possible to define a username that will be displayed to your contacts without changing the ETH.
This would greatly improve the experience of using the Status and will be more inviting for users who are not used to or even interested in using cryptocurrencies. A real example of people who would benefit greatly: my parents.
Any other comments:
If you think this is a great idea and know how to implement it, consider posting a project proposal on Assemble.
Wholeheartedly agree, I’ve been mulling over this on/off for quite a long while now as its consistent with the overwhelming feedback I’m hearing that people are confused by the wacky usernames and lack of choice they have in personalisation of their profiles.
Basically, I think we have it backwards with identity. During onboarding you should be able to choose a display name and profile pic for yourself and this is how others see you. Wacky names can be randomly generated for you whenever you want to enter a chat using a pseudonymous identity. ENS names are a human readable shortcut to 0x… addresses.
Now I have no idea if that’s even remotely possible, I just have a feeling this would make our product much better and better predisposed for growth among the less technical audience.
I like the random names. What I don’t like are the profile pictures. If only we could exchange the photo for something of ours, it would make the experience more friendly to non-technical users.
What I think is to give users an option:
Anonymous: Will generate a random name consisting of three words.
Default: Define a username you want.
And in all options we can define a profile photo that we want.