Is UX in crypto necessary or overrated?
When functions are common and options are aplenty, UX is key.
Imagine trying out a new food delivery app. After a few taps, you find that the app is not easy to use and doesn’t help you to order food quickly. You leave and you find yourself downloading other alternatives.
When functions like being able to order food online are common, it means the technology is now deemed common and essential. When tech is common, we can expect a lot of competitors wanting a share of the pie. In such situations, UX is key. Ease of use and thoughtfulness becomes key differentiators for products.
If you think about it, this happens for all new technology.
Facebook started out as a janky application - wasn’t there when it first happened but I’m sure we can all imagine its interactions to be slightly confusing and troublesome. But, for many at that time, it was the first time where people were able to find and connect with each other online. The new ability/function to be able to do this propelled the popularity of Facebook. The lack of ‘user-friendliness’ did not stop Facebook from gaining traction.
As its user base started to grow, so did the requests of accessibility and ease of use coming from users. Over time, it became easier and easier to look up people on Facebook or share statuses.
Due to the success of Facebook, new social media platforms were formed; replicating and making functions better than the incumbent. As more competitors joined the race, the lack of user-friendliness in one’s product is now be detrimental as other products can offer better experiences.
Hence one can argue that in nascent technology, making it easier to use is less of an importance early one but becomes increasingly important as technology becomes familiar and options become aplenty.
UX in present day crypto
What about crypto? Can we consider the technology to be still nascent or should we start incorporating good UX practices to stand out amongst the crowd?
Within crypto, there are new services and there are also services or functions that has been around for quite some time. Being able to purchase crypto through centralized exchanges is an example of a common function. Centralized exchanges have been around for several years now and so the top exchanges are constantly improving the experiences of using their platforms to retain users. Note that this was not always the case; several years ago when buying crypto was way harder, that didn’t stop people from finding whatever way possible to get their hands on crypto.
I would also argue that NFT marketplaces although relatively new are also now in this category of familiar technology. The attention NFTs have gotten in the past 12 months really accelerated the tech from nascent to a familiar one.
The same can’t be said for some functions/services like participating in a Liquidity bootstrapping pool (LBP) or providing liquidity for 2 assets in an asymmetrical manner. It’s not everyday you hear someone say ‘I want to LP my assets in a 80:20 manner’. These relatively newer features would then be differentiated by their newness (oh I can now do this with my assets) rather than by their ease of use.
Fork the user experience
One unique characteristic about blockchain protocols as compared to web2 services is that the former is open source. When new projects fork incumbent projects, they fork their latest attempt at creating the best user experience and then iterate on top of that.
Now if you run this simulation of forking protocols and iterating, over time, all protocols would eventually be implemented the best design/ux practices. In this situation, UX does not seem to be the key differentiator anymore. We see this with some web2 services where there is nothing left to be optimized and stickiness boils down to switching costs, brand identity and the likes.
A fun thought experiment is thinking about what do social cues look like for users using specific protocols? Does brand (blockchain name) association matter? “I don’t want to use Solana because I don’t want to be associated to a VC chain”, “I don’t want to use Terra because I don’t want to be associated to possible ponzis”. Would we eventually see statements like these becoming more prominent outside of Crypto Twitter or we will not since accounts are anonymised?
Practical UX advice
If you are a new protocol with very niche services that are not common yet. Here’s what I would focus on:
have an iterative mindset - be quick to launch and be quick to scrap
build a funnel to get feedback from community - it’s a blessing to have a discord community of people using your product everyday and hearing their feedback first hand
with enough feedback, you’ll eventually land on the best UX practices
If you are a protocol with common functions (swap, deposit x asset into a contract), I would do these instead:
look at other protocols with similar functions, choose one or two that you find the easiest to use and helps you with your intent. You can think of intent as the different things users would want to do on your protocol.
For example, an intent could be swapping from one asset to another.
what makes it easy to use could be it’s easy to search assets or the top assets are already recommended
what helps with the intent could be clearly showing that the transaction went through and the user now has the swapped asset
fork that protocol’s best practices
then build a funnel to get feedback similar to the previous situation
Regardless of how you start, you’d want to eventually make it a priority to create a loop where you’re constantly getting feedback from users who are using your protocols everyday. Coming from web2, I can’t help to feel an invisible barrier between the people building the products and the actual users. Web3 builders on the other hand, are more in tuned with their users and the users themselves are more vocal and active in sharing feedback. Which we should know by now, is a crucial asset - especially if you’re building the next best food delivery app.