Project Type
Startup
New Product Development
B2C
SKills Used
User Research
Usability Testing
Wireframing
UX Writing
Prototyping
UI Design
Visual Design
Tools Used
Figma
Typeform
Airtable
Project Duration
1 Year 3 Months • April 2021 - July 2022
Ferriswheel is a startup making Crypto and NFTs fun and inviting. We seek to remove the intimidation of the space and focus on welcoming new users to the wonderful world of Crypto.
Exec Summary
Ferriswheel hired me in April 2021 to design their brand-new NFT marketplace product. After conducting user research to understand their current user base, I developed user personas and prototyped an MVP. As the project continued, the founders expanded my remit to redesign the trading platform on mobile and web, manage the rollout of a rebranding project and create and manage a design system.
Understanding The Market
NFTs exploded into the mainstream in April 2021. Like most things Crypto related, there was a high barrier of entry for users with little to no understanding. Ferriswheel had attracted an audience to cryptocurrency trading on the premise of 'making crypto simple' and had excellent reviews. The aim was to make it as simple as they had made Crypto.
User Research
I created a research survey to send to Ferriswheel's existing audience to understand the education level and the general feeling of NFTs in the market. I fed the responses into an Airtable so I could organise them and start to create some proto-personas based on users' experience level with NFTs.
I then created a long list of potential interviewees and invited them for a session where I would interview them and user-test a prototype.
User Interviews
I interviewed 12 people who responded to our NFT survey to find out about their history with Crypto and their interest and knowledge of NFTs. 10 of the 12 interviewees were existing Ferriswheel users. I then ran a usability testing session of the NFT marketplace prototype I'd created.
Most participants were highly sceptical about cryptocurrencies when first hearing about them.
"Dodgy area could get scammed"
"Found crypto intimidating and ambiguous" (before using Ferriswheel) "Ferriswheel opened my eyes"
Thoughts on Ferriswheel
Several participants searched for a UK-trusted company and found Ferriswheel; others found out by participating in CrowdCube raise.
Assets on Ferriswheel
Ferriswheel's choice of assets mirrors the halo effect seen on Coinbase; coins listed on the platform are seen as legitimate by proxy.
"I stick to what you do"
"Ferriswheel aren't going to waste their time with coins that aren't feasible - I was under the impression that Ferriswheel were only holding the trustworthy Crypto"
Research period
All participants had a space to learn about Crypto before buying them, with most referencing YouTube and CoinGecko as their resources of choice.
Investment style
Most participants that were Ferriswheel users see Crypto as a smaller speculative investment alongside a broader, more extensive, traditional portfolio. The majority were Novices and are hodlrs, potentially conditioned by the most recent bull run (this majority only got into Crypto in the last 18 months during the pandemic).
Those more experienced tend to trade in and out of more speculative coins using Binance and other exchanges that offer more choice.
Questions on NFTs
NFT knowledge varied as expected by the level in the proto personas I had created from the survey respondents (Novice, Dabbler, Expert).
Most Ferriswheel users fit into the 'Novice' persona; two out of the three that I had previously assumed as 'Dabblers' ended up knowing less than they had intimated in the survey and becoming 'Novices'.
Those that were 'Experts' were not Ferriswheel users.
Opportunites
! HMW = "How Might We" - These are the design challenges/problem statements to be factored into the next iteration of the Marketplace prototype.
Ferriswheel users fit the 'Novice' persona and were interested in NFTs, but have not done much research yet and were confused and had lots of questions.
"What does NFT actually stand for?"
"Where does the value come from?"
"I'm not getting it; what do they do"
"Interested to learn more - if I buy one, can it be replicated?"
"How do people make money?"
"Do you own a part of something?"
"I went into OpenSea to understand, but it still doesn't make sense"
"[OpenSea] Confused the hell out of me; it bugged me, so I left"
"How can I see my artwork?"
"What stops the artist from selling 10,000 more of them"
! HMW - educate Ferriswheel users on NFTs more broadly
Existing marketplaces are too cluttered and open/challenging to find what they like.
"You get a massive selection of work dumped on you - I can't see the body of their work, their style, so you can't look out for the next one."
"It seems cluttered."
"I'm seeing things that don't speak to me."
Users aren't convinced of the value.
"the market is too saturated and full of hype, and it's making it muddy"
[MLB trading cards] "is this a feasible thing to do? There are all these different editions of the same player card; there's no guarantee that this specific card will be worth anything even if this player becomes a huge star in the future; it's all confusing"
[NBA Top Shot] "I'm not sure it has longevity, which is what I'm looking for as an investment."
[Regarding value] "There's no history or data to base it on."
! HMW Educate users on how to understand and scan for value
User Personas
Prototype
After the initial user interview, users were sent a Figma prototype and asked to complete a series of tasks. 10 of the 12 were able to participate in this part of the research, although not all of those 10 had enough time to go through all the tasks.
Research Summary
Overall the prototype tested well. Users found it easy to navigate through the app, and the screens behaved as expected. The use of familiar patterns - in particular, the feed - was liked by both Novice and Expert users.
The biggest problem was an assumed level of knowledge about NFTs. Most Ferriswheel users need an introduction to NFTs to feel confident navigating the marketplace.
Verification is vital due to the perceived (and legitimate) lack of safety in this space. A verification step in the onboarding and a prominent filter is essential but might need a careful explanation not to make users complacent about purchases.
Curation is essential for new users, especially as current marketplace offerings show you an infinite number of NFTs without context. Moreover, showing what has value and why will be especially important for these users.
"Easy, user friendly, don't have to click too many buttons, there's not too much on the screen, easy to navigate around - if you were to give this to someone who didn't know what they were doing, they could pretty much work it out, it's not complicated"
"It's really easy, it's not really complicated like other crypto apps, what you're looking for is right there"
"It's very straightforward"
Experience level
Most users selected "I'm new" and liked that this screen existed. The 'Experts' just clicked "let me in" and immediately understood the feed concept.
One user wasn't comfortable with the options presented and would sit in between the two available, as he had a bit of knowledge ('Dabbler')
"Reassuring, I don't need to be an expert"
"I think that's cool, on OpenSea and Rarible they just throw you in there"
"It needs another option, it's binary; some other trading apps explain the difference… I wouldn't feel comfortable choosing either of these"
! HMW - Make sure that each user has an option that gives them what they need in the following steps.
Categories
Users were happy with the choices and explanation of categories, but most would need more education to make informed decisions and grasp more difficult or vague categories such as 'Utility'.
"This helps me understand that there are more categories than art - it could be good to have examples here"
"I'd probably tick them all as I wouldn't have a preference at this stage"
"I'd probably read through them all if I had time, or I'd just click continue with all"
"Some are straight forward, I would love to see more explanation for some (utility) with an example etc. The wording is fine I just can't picture what it is in my head by just reading it"
! HMW - Expand on category education for Novices and add examples for all others
Verification
All users selected Verified but had different understandings of what this meant; this was deliberately vague in the prototype to understand what users would assume without reading the text.
"Means due diligence has been done. Anyone can get involved in this space; there's got to be some checks that have been done, prior to Ferriswheel showing that it's something I can invest in"
"The last thing I want to do is invest in something, and it's fake"
"The Crypto space is full of fraud; there's a lot of dodgy stuff going on"
"You know it's verified, so there's no way of you losing your money"
"Sounds sketchy if the platform is selling things it doesn't know are trusted or not or things that aren't legitimate" So it needs to explain what verified means; otherwise, I'll assume it's selling things it doesn't know are legitimate, so how can I trust this platform?
"How many are verified and unverified?"
"Does this prove their authenticity? It would be cool if they only offered verified. When I looked before, I was put off that it might not be legit."
! HMW - Explain verification / allow a choice between verified and unverified whilst educating new users as to what this means and the limitations and safeguards
Feed
The feed concept was immediately recognisable and liked by all. All participants understood that the previous questions had applied filters to this feed. Even after exploring the browse screen, most users, when given the task "show me how you would find all the Art collections", returned to the feed to add a filter for Art collections.
"This is a good screen. I've spent some time answering questions, and it's good to see how they've honed things down for me - this is my reward for answering the questions. I've got a personalised collection of things I might be interested in"
"This makes perfect sense - I like that you can filter the items"
"Oh yeah, okay, this is cool. I like that it gives you a big picture of an image rather than a thumbnail so you can focus on the whole image, like dating apps"
"I like this interface. I like that it focuses on one image as opposed to when I look online, and it's just thumbnails, so you don't get to appreciate them."
"Feels like recommendations is the best browsing experience"
"Feels like Instagram. I like that I can see one thing at a time"
! HMW explain categories and collections in onboarding and visually differentiate in feed
Prototype v2
Rebrand
After a few months, my responsibilities expanded to include redesigning the Ferriswheel trading platform on the web, mobile, and app. At the same time, the agency Koto undertook a major rebranding project. I was responsible for the rollout of the new brand across all touchpoints, working with Koto to feed into the guidelines' UI design patterns.
Trading Platform Redesign
With the unification of the NFT Market and Trading platform came a set of challenges and an opportunity to review the information architecture.
Existing Design
Before, a trade form allowed users to buy, sell and swap Crypto from the same form component.
"Fiat First" Redesign
Looking at the data, it was clear that users buying Bitcoin with cash were the most frequent journey. The existing design took a more DEFI/DEX approach (similar to Uniswap), where currencies are swapped. For a new user of Crypto (Ferriswheel's target audience), this swap form component, presented without any context, is quite anxiety-inducing as it's not a component they're used to seeing or using.
This approach was also at odds with the user behaviours uncovered in the research, where users wanted to buy and hold Crypto as part of their investment portfolio. I looked at leading investment platforms cited in my user research and convinced the team that we should adopt a Fiat-first approach.
Taking a "Fiat-first" approach meant ending the idea of 'currency conversion' and instead leaning into the buying stocks and shares comparison, where things were bought and sold for cash (Fiat). Part of the simplifying was making sure there was no mention of the word "Fiat" at all!
This new approach meant redesigning the platform around this premise. Where there is a "Buy" CTA, this means buying with cash (GBP/EUR).
A "Sell" CTA means selling for cash.
You would only see a swap form when 'converting' one Crypto to another.
Buy Journey Mobile Prototype
This initial design of the buy flow didn't contain card payment as an option, as this was not yet an available payment option.
Buy Journey Web Prototype
Designed to mirror e-commerce journeys much more familiar to users.
Asset information
As the existing platform only showed very basic price information for Crypto assets, the redesign was an opportunity to expand the research capabilities of the platform.
During the user interviews, I asked users how they learned about new cryptocurrencies and what information they wished was on Ferriswheel. They cited sites such as Coin Gecko and Coinmarketcap, so I incorporated this type of design into a coin details page.
At the same time, I was able to unify the app's structure to be the same as the NFT marketplace.
"Homepage - Details Page - Item Page"