About
Nova is a cryptocurrency exchange app with a modern feel. Its goal is to make buying, selling, and exchanging crypto coins easy for both beginner and advanced traders.
Project Duration
8 weeks
Role
Design Tools
UI/UX designer and researcher
Figma, Photoshop
User research
Information architecture
Wire-framing
Low-fidelity prototypes
Usability testing
User interface design
High-fidelity prototypes
Responsibilities
The Challenge
The challenge was to rethink and improve the crypto wallet user experience. Nova is a decentralized exchange wallet that aims at improving the cryptocurrency user experience. The outcome expects an elegant design solution that is simple yet powerful and intuitive.
The Process
I started this project by applying the design thinking process as a problem-solving method. The Design Thinking Process is a human-centered approach with a primary focus on empathy to uncover deep needs and insights of users to build an accurate mindset when considering possible solutions. This approach takes a designer through a phase of understanding, exploring and then materializing solutions for testing.
Design thinking phases
The empathize phase of the design thinking process is about taking the time to understand people, the way they do things and why, their needs, how they think about the world, and what is meaningful to them.
Questions: Who is the user? What matters to this person? How does this feature fit into their lives? What motivates or discourages users? Where do they experience frustration?
Tactics: User interviews, personas, user journey maps, empathy maps
Empathize
The define phase is the synthesis of information gathered to determine a meaningful, actionable problem statement.
Questions: What are the problems this project attempts to solve? What do we want to achieve? How will we know if we're successful?
Tactics: User testing existing experience (pain points), stakeholder/expert interviews, key performance indicators
Define
The ideate phase is for generating as many as ideas as possible. This phase provides both the fuel and the source material for building prototypes and getting possible solutions in the hands of users.
Questions: What are the ideas? What are possible solutions?
Tactics: Brainstorming, competitive and comparative analysis, sketching
Ideate
The prototype phase is about creating a tangible representation of an idea or possible solution.
Questions: How can the ideas be represented? What needs to be created in order to test with users?
Tactics: Digital wireframes, low-fidelity prototypes
Prototype
The test phase includes a solicitation of feedback from users on the prototypes created. The feedback from this phase gives designers the insights needed to revisit any of the steps to further refine and iterate on a prototype before moving onto high-fidelity mockups.
Questions: What are users telling us that we can further iterate on? What went well? Where did users have difficulty?
Tactics: Usability testing
Test
Implementation is taking an idea or solution, and transforming it into something real and usable by users.
Questions: How do we materialize the solution?
Tactics: High-fidelity mockups, high-fidelity prototypes
Implement
Understanding the Users
I began the empathize phase of the design process by conducting user interviews and surveys with both experienced and inexperienced crypto traders. From this data, I was able to deduce a target demographic and the specific concerns users have when buying and selling cryptocurrency.
Main research insights
Users are very concerned with wallet security (some users have had their wallets lost or stolen in the past)
Users typically prefer to have one wallet within a single app
About 70% of experienced crypto traders are young adults ages 20-35
Users said most crypto platforms on the market are not intuitive or easy to use and require a high level of technical know-how
Users desire a simple way to transfer and deposit money
Users are concerned with fluctuating coin prices and the inherent risks of investing
Potential users said cryptocurrency is still an obscure topic to them and they are therefore skeptical about investing in it
User Persona
Based on the data collected, I created a user persona to represent our users.
Define
In the define stage of the design process, I put together all the information and data collected in the empathize stage. This is where I broke down and analyzed my research insights and observations into chunks in order to define the core problems. In this stage, I also performed competitor research and found that most crypto platforms do not target or consider newbies or people who are not experienced in the vast world of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. As a result, many potential users have voiced this as a frustration and it has shown itself to be a major barrier to entry.
Goals defined:
The goal for Nova was to design a seamless, intuitive, user-friendly platform that provided additional values and features to crypto holders, traders, and other potential users. Essentially the goal was to create a platform that made trading and storing crypto easy, fun, and secure for users.
Ideate
In this phase, I had already empathized with the users’ needs, analyzed research observations and insights and I was ready to start generating ideas. The ideation stage required a lot of thinking and brainstorming to identify possible design solutions. Throughout this stage, I also created pen and paper sketches of a few iterations.
How Might We’s:
How might we make our platform intuitive for both newbies and experts
How might we make our wallets safe and secure
Ideas generated after the ideation process:
A simple, intuitive on-boarding process with helpful tips to ease new users into the app
Easy sign up with options to sign in using Facebook/Google or fingerprint scan for an added layer of security
Charts and graphs to help with efficient and informed decision making
Verification codes and QR scans to allow users to trade with the best security
Straightforward deposit, withdraw, and transfer options
Prototype
After completing the first three stages of the design process, I created digital wireframes that included the basic skeleton for each page of the app, including its layout, organization, and elements. Then I made a low-fidelity prototype for usability testing.
Usability Test
Afterwards, I conducted a usability test using the low-fidelity prototype. Insights and observations from this test assisted in iterating on the next round of wireframes and prototypes. Some of the themes I discovered during this usability test include:
Users want simple navigation between pages
Users want clear call-to-action buttons
Users must perceive the app to be reliable, trustworthy, and stable in order for them to use it
Users want technical jargon to be kept to a minimum
Users want a way to receive app notifications
Users want visual design consistency
Design System
In order to begin the process of creating a high-fidelity prototype, I developed a design system for the app. This included the colour scheme, iconography, typography, buttons, and graphics that the app will follow.
Mockups
Next, I refined the wireframe designs to enhance the user’s visual experience and to incorporate insights from the usability test. Here, users are first greeted with on-boarding screens that provide an introduction to the application and increase the users’ level of trust in it. Next, they are met with the sign-in/sign-up screens which provide easy and safe methods of registration. If users decide to sign-up using mobile, they are given a One Time Password or OTP to make sign-up more secure. Users can also sign-in using Touch ID if they desire a more quick and seamless login. After login, users can easily view the market, trades, profile, settings, notifications, and their wallets and activity.
High-fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype demonstrates cohesive and vibrant branding, along with an intuitive user experience. Click the image below to view the prototype.
Reflection
As someone who was mostly unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology at the start of this project, designing Nova was a challenging but rewarding experience. The empathize phase of the design process was especially important because it allowed me to uncover user needs and pain points. Through these discoveries, I was able to brainstorm and come up with design solutions. It was also very gratifying to then implement these solutions into the user interface design.
Next Steps:
Test this prototype with users and iterate design
Refine the design solution based on feedback from testing
Add additional screens and user flows
Conduct more research on the complexities of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology