Why do Crypto/Blockchain Platforms have a poor UX?
Cryptocurrency has a lot of potentials to change the world economy as the next paradigm shift, in my opinion. However, as a User Experience designer, I have found that the majority of crypto products are confusing to the general user and require a great deal of focused knowledge to avoid financial loss.
Many of my coworkers, friends, and other people have admitted to them that they’ve tried numerous apps to get into crypto, but it’s been challenging. The apps request a lot of information, and there are a lot of charts, strange numbers, enigmatic percentages, and vibrant logos… It’s overwhelming for them to hear me describe the principles of private keys, public keys, liquidity pools, volatility, yield, hodling, DeFi, staking, gas fees, minting, tokens, among many others, even if I understand exactly what they’re talking about. We just cannot expect even one billion people to adopt on a large scale if they need to understand what all of these represent.
Product designers in crypto have done an excellent job of translating the needs of software engineers and their respective organizations, but only a few companies have focused on seamless user-friendly experiences. Some have come close ((and I applaud them!)), but compare the design of popular crypto apps to popular apps in other categories, such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Messenger. These businesses have honed their experience design to cater to all types of people worldwide (regardless of their differences). Those who are unfamiliar with how a story works, how a message is sent, or how to find an album can easily use these apps to figure it out in seconds. This experience design has advanced so far that they’ve discovered ways to keep users’ eyes glued to their screens for hours on end. Some design elements, such as Tinder’s swipe left or swipe right, even become part of popular culture.
Web3 and DeFi are currently experiencing peak ‘hype’ levels. I like the idea of it taking over, but I don’t think it’s ready for the scale we want. We’ll need top-tier design strategies. Consider that there are still people today who struggle to do basic tasks on their computer or phone — and I’m sure we’ve all met plenty of them — and that we need to design with them in mind. Personally, I prefer Android, but Apple has excelled at product design that extends across its ecosystem of apps and devices. It’s straightforward and effective. Yes, there are a few hiccups here and there, but for the most part, it’s pretty smooth and functional. These are the models we should emulate.
Good design is beautiful but great design is invisible. When a user has to pause and look up how to do something in an app, it immediately decreases their interest and long-term retention. The invisible design demonstrates that a user can complete tasks without having to focus on individual elements.
Essentially, I want to be able to recommend a crypto app to a friend, colleague, or family member and not have to explain anything to them; they’ll be able to figure everything out within minutes of downloading.
For the record, I like Strike’s simplified approach. It’s visually unappealing, but it accomplishes its goal. It has had tremendous success in El Salvador, where impoverished communities use Bitcoin for daily transactions. This is an app that requires no prior knowledge.
Open to your thoughts, please let me know if there’s anything I missed or touched on in an odd way.
