Fruitbasket
UX/UI of a decentralised crypto currency application
Designed cryptocurrency baskets used by investors and advanced crypto users to diversify their investment
Hackathon project
Date : August 2022
Role : User Research, UI/UX Design
Duration: 2 months
Overview : What is FruitBasket and why I am designing it ?
FruitBasket is a decentralized market where users can create and invest in baskets of the most promising cryptocurrencies. The basket creator will earn some rewards as the number of USD invested in their baskets increases. It is based on Solana and Serum technology.
Fruit Basket is a web application that gives its users the opportunity to diversify their cryptocurrency investments by the creation of baskets. It is based on the Solana blockchain.
Team : Project Manager , Backend and front end dev , myself as a UX/UI Designer
Problem statement: How might we reduce the dependency of crypto users on a single coin so they can diversify their portfolios?
Problem Discovery
What’s the problem with the current crypto applications? How can we do better?
Our research allowed us to identify the flaws in the current cryptocurrency system. The current problem users face is that there are so many cryptocurrencies in the market and without proper research and market understanding it is tough for the users to understand investment opportunities
The key design features our business team requested were the following :
Home page
Basket creation page
Trade, swap basket pages
Links to Social Media
Getting started page
Research
Competitor analysis
The main difference between FB and various other crypto exchange platforms is that it is truly decentralized, does not require any authentication to get started, and is fast plus energy efficient as it is based on the Solana blockchain.
Fruit Basket is the only application that is the giving the functionality of basket creation with any crypto coin to the user
Insights from competitor analysis
Problem: Getting started with the new technology
The current applications are in a stage where they are built by developers and for developers. It is tough to even for technical users to get started
Problem: Current applications are difficult to use because the language used as technical and financial concepts are not explained properly to the end-user
Problem : The concept of the gas and it must be calculated and charged for every transaction adds more problems to the end-user as in other financial applications gas is not used
User Interviews
The target for interviews: Users who investing in baskets are looking to temporarily surrender their assets so that they can grow in value over a short or long-term period of time. In a sense, the users can also be thought of as traders.
In order to use Fruit basket, one must have prior knowledge of how something like Bitcoin or Ether is stored.
They should also know how to send one currency from one address to another, and ideally, how something like a crypto wallet functions.
A total 6 in depth interviews were done
Quotes from the interview :
“I see crypto currency as a good investment opportunity”
“Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the complicated features “
“I want to diversify my investment in crypto”
“I do not want be leave behind in new tech market”
“I want to see crypto bringing financial independence to the masses”
“I still see lack of mass adoption crypto currency”
Problem statement
How might we create a Simple, Quick, Delightful and Transparent crypto investment application for investors and advanced users to simplify their investment strategy ?
Goals for the design : The main aim of the FB is to provide user a platform where he can create and invest in baskets
Ideation
User flow
The user flow map paved the way for the first version of wireframes. Without the user flow, wireframing would have been difficult and time-consuming because design variations are infinite.
Design
Wireframes help designers to determine which elements are required on each page, and the functional requirement that needs to be in place for those elements. Wireframes were designed by creating a skeletal structure, and basic features, determining the user navigation and helping ease the user experience
Major improvements in the design
Final design on mobile with details
Final outcome :
The main concept and design of the app were very received in the hackathon community
Currently, this design is in the development phase
One of the best pieces of feedback we received was comparing the performance of different baskets on the same screen.
Next steps :
Currently not all the screens are available on desktop. To complete the whole design on the desktop and do more usability test to validate the design
What was the main challenge?
Crypto – What is it actually ?
Honestly speaking I had very little knowledge about crypto currencies before start of this project
Before I start to design any screen for this project, I wanted to understand how blockchain works and different types of applications based on cryptocurrencies. To start I did one introductory course on Coursera which gave me basic understanding of how blockchain works. Then I read many articles on various blogs, watched YouTube videos , created accounts / try to create account on various crypto applications.
Finally, I read reviews of various app users on Playstore. All these helped me to establish a through understanding of crypto currency industry and blockchain
Restrospective
This was one of the most exciting projects that I have worked upon till now! My interest in blockchain world and the love for design made me work on this beautiful project! This project had a huge learning curve and I’m glad I got something to learn while doing something I love.
Some things that I learnt while working on this case study :
- Implementing thoughts into a design process.
- Better documentation while writing a case study.
- Not going crazy while designing the interface — you should know when to stop adding elements.
It was a great experience overall, thank you! 👋