Well the first thing is they are similar in the way they are used to exchange ideas but they are very different in the tone of voice and the structure of the conversation. This is important especially when you’re designing a platform for folks to exchange ideas with money on the line.
I was approached by Alex and David, two guys wanting to build a platform where people can post “claims”, which are essentially hot takes on a subject welcoming anyone to place a bet on beating their claim.
Wanna say iPhone is better than Android? Sounds good, But you better back it up. The goal is to strategically engage in a conversation and provide the most logical argument.
Most debates can be judged by the following categories:
What’s different about Alex and David’s platform “Steelman Network” is that obviously it’s a online platform. This means there’s complexity around things like hand gestures, eye contact, and body language.
The text that the debaters type will then be emphasized that much more. The structure of the app would need to handle for a logical way of allowing both debaters to engage back and forth.
A tree (node) structure allowed for a visual way of representing a debate and allows debaters to engage per conversation point.
The comments being tied to each one of the claims makes for easy organization while still allowing debaters to add more claim cards related to the other claims.
This is only scratching the surface on what it takes to design a debate platform. I didn’t even mention the scoring, judges, and process of finalizing the debate process but I can ssave that for another article.
I’m excited to see how user adapt to the platform and seeing Steelman Network evolve into a engaging debate community.
How do y’all think a debate platform can be designed? What else would you consider in the platform for insightful conversations?
Thank you for reading!