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Project Overview

INTRODUCTION

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Blockchain technology keeps developing while the cryptocurrency market is growing day by day. Yet, its adoption among various users around the world has been slow and there is still a long way to go before it reaches a billion. There are some obstacles to overcome such as scalability, lack of knowledge, lack of usability and user friendliness, perception of immaturity, security, trust, complexity for common users.

 

As a designer and blockchain technology enthusiast, I also noticed that usability of the products provided by the technology is very often not convenient for everyday users. The services and platforms seem to be difficult to understand and there are not many companies out there paying attention to UX and shaping their strategies and products based on user needs.

I believe designers can help with accelerating the adoption of blockchain and there is much work that can be done by designers to bring web3 closer to people who are not tech savvy. Considering that a wallet is usually the first step for potential web3 users, I decided to work on a case study which is aiming to discover problems of wallets for newbies and potential solutions for those.

SCOPE

Design a mobile wallet helps make trading, transferring, and payment of cryptocurrency simple, yet easy to understand.

MY ROLE

Product Thinking, Information Architecture, Interaction, Visual design, Prototyping & Testing

Business

Competitor Analysis

Competitors in the market, such as Metamask, which is one of the leading non-custodial wallets do not support direct bank connection, the user has to go through several steps to deposit, while it takes time to transfer fiat to most of the CEX, for instance, the biggest Binance which has a quite complex flow for a newbie.

Most of the platforms do not really consider or target newbies or people who are not experienced or learned about blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

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#At onboarding, the non-custodial wallets require seed phrases to be noted, while CEX asks for KYC process.

User Research

I interviewed three different type of users: blockchain professional, a user who already has a wallet and a user who is curious but do not own a wallet. Meanwhile, I published a survey to grasp quantitative results.

 

Despite rapid adaptation of blockchain, there are still many obstacles block the industry out to be universally acclaimed.

Survey results revealed following results:

Knowledge of crypto currencies remains limited

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 is the global crypto ownership rate as of 2023, with over 420 million crypto users worldwide.

have security concerns

do not know where to start

do not fully understand the concept and how it works

think UX/UI is holding them back

finds wallets and onboarding complicated

believes that they might lose the seed phrases at some point

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use mobil banking

What Users Said

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  • "Potential users are usually skeptical about the topic of cryptocurrency, and It’s still very obscure to them.."

  • "DEXs lack intuitiveness and are more suitable for traders who have spent some time in the crypto space, it is not user-friendly for newbies."

  • "Users complained of using too many crypto platforms for simple actions."

  • "They don’t have a single platform that allows them to manage their cryptocurrency portfolio without having to move from platform to platform and lack data visualization of their portfolio/earnings."

  • "The most of the platforms are not intuitive or easy to use and require a high level of technical know-how"

  • "Lack of explanation for beginners. Lots of high-level crypto speak"

Top Challenges of Crypto Adoption

  • Scalability. Popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to struggle with scalability. ...

  • Volatility. ...

  • Security concerns. ...

  • Lack of interoperability. ...

  • Limited merchant acceptance. ...

  • Resistance from traditional financial institutions.

Empathy Map

  • Information out there is very confusing.

  • The whole thing is very complex and unfamiliar

  • Everything looks very unstable

  • Don’t know where to start

  • It seems unreliable

  • Wallets are complex

  • I get confused when opening an account

  • Do not understand functions and features at onboarding

Pain

  • Wants to get into blockchain world

  • Wants to have a wallet

  • Try alternative financial systems​

  • Wants to know more about decentralization

  • Use more web3 services

  • Wants more simple & familiar UI and flows

  • Wants to convert fiat to crypto with less transactions and screens

  • The most crypto users tend to have multiple coins and prefer multi-wallet apps

Gain

Define

How Might We...

Potential users are usually skeptical about the topic of cryptocurrency, and It’s still very obscure to them. How might we provide user a familiar crypto wallet experience so that they can easily set up their wallet and directly convert fiat into crypto currencies, and use the same wallet for other web3 services.

User Persona & User Journey

Problem

People are experiencing a hard time understanding blockchain and setting up a wallet and convert their fiat into crypto currencies, as result they give up even though they are interested. They need to have a more familiar process, which solves multiple needs in one place without using multiple apps and accounts.

Hypothesis

We believe designing a crypto wallet app which embeds mobile banking as well as provides similar experience to common online banking apps to provide familiarity which can help people to overcome the complexity barrier.

#1 

Complexity in the ecosystem

#2 

Complicated  Wallet Setup & Onboarding

#3 

Security Concerns

The Challenge

#1

Reduce Complexity

#2

Simplify Wallet Setup

& Onboarding 

#3

Improve Security

Solution

Brainstorming

Provide a design for

better understanding

Banking & Crypto assets will be in one app.

Login with 2FA

A product similar to

common online banking apps

Buying crypto

from their own currency.

Easy account recovery

The user can do buy, sell, trade, withdraw, deposit from one app.
 

Provide a multi

network /coin wallet

Split onboarding into steps, allow saving steps

Setup & use with a  username, email

or phone

Transaction Review

No Seed Phrase

Prioritize

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# Provide the FAMILIAR

Designing a digital crypto currency wallet which provides similar experience to common mobile banking apps by reducing friction at onboarding, allowing signup/login with username, common account recovery and login options, removing seed phrases from the initial flow, lay at the core of the solution. 

Prototype

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Create & Manage your Account with Ease

Users can create account simply with email, phone number.

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They can also use this for Account Recovery and 2FA Login

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See all in One Place

Users can view their bank account balance as well as their crypto currencies at one place on home page.

Convert Crypto to Fiat

on banking page

Buy ethereum with your currency on the banking page in seconds.

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See your transactions

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Wallet for Crypto Currencies 

Buy/Sell/Exchange crypto currencies on your wallet.

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See your crypto transactions

Learn more about Crypto

Get more reliable information and learn more about blockchain technologies and crypto currencies from the curated content.

Username & Passcode

Username as an address and account access.

Passcode for extra safety on the wallet.

Moodboard & Style Tile

Style Guide & Design Library

In order to have organized system for our design, which will allow us to improve change, update our product consistently in the future, also provide a guide for the future members of the design team as well as save time, energy and money we created our design system which includes typography, iconography, UI elements and Components.

Conclusion

Learnings

Designing a fintech product is quite a complex process since, simply a payment, transfer or billing functions alone bring many problems to solve. There are various user flows, potential error states, security issues and functionalities that can be confusing for non-digital natives or people who are not familiar with these products. By definition, Onboarding is challenging  as security, identification, information and guidance are required at the same time, while the flow should be self explanatory as well as simple and quick. Besides, financial products require efficient communication of text, number and visuals like graphs, dashboard etc. which should offer appealing, simple and informative.

 

Adding crypto currencies in such products makes it even harder to tackle the challenge. Many people are still not familiar with blockchain and crypto currencies. Since it is a new technology, people are not experienced using related products and there is a lot of information pollution out there.

Next Steps

In this round, I tried to approach the “familiarity aspect”, where I designed an online banking app which offers a crypto currency wallet. Surely, it still requires improvements in online banking functions as well as the crypto wallet. Thus, I planed the next steps as follows:

 

  • Improve onboarding by making the sign up screen more readable and appealing; adding guidance and instructions with visuals, illustrations and interactions while keeping it short.

  • Increase the accessibility of the learning and information section.

  • In the flow where the wallet is created with seed phrases, the process can be explained with animations and informative bubble and popup screens.   

  • Find ways simplify the user flow between banking, wallet and swap screens.

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