Crypto Swapping App
The Task: Create Mobile App MVP
I was contracted to design the MVP of a popular DEX aggregation company's mobile app. The main objective was to focus on high-impact decisions rather than perfection.
I am currently under an NDA, meaning the name of the company, and metrics cannot be revealed.
Success Metrics Under NDA
While the exact success metrics that we had were under NDA. We had two categories we were targeting.
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Migrated & retained web users
Balancing Business & User Needs
High-Impact Focus: Optimize for fast, best-priced swaps to drive volume.
User Trust & Transparency: Clearly display trade details to encourage retention.
Mobile-First Experience: Prioritize speed, simplicity, and reliability over complex features.
Who Is The Core User?
User is familiar with Web3 and have a wallet like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, etc.
They don’t need hand-holding to set up a wallet but might need a smooth connection process.
Users are actively trading or swapping tokens, meaning they already have assets in their wallet.
Fiat on-ramps aren’t a priority for MVP since the user is not new to crypto.
Since "Our Company" aggregates prices from multiple sources (Uniswap, SushiSwap, 0x, etc.), users expect better trade execution than going directly to a single DEX. We should display this.
Gas fees, slippage, and price impact are key decision factors for that.
What We Could Make & Competitive Analysis
I measured what we could feasibly make based on what we have available on web. I also did a competitive analysis to understand what was crucial to implement in order to be competitive.
Where Should Our Efforts Be?
I prioritized where our efforts should be based on the impact that different features would have. I based this off data in the system. I knew that Native Multi Chain Trading made up 76% of our revenue. Some of the other features like "Best Route Display" were experiential features that I knew were important based on feedback from users.
Large Discussion With The Team
Why Not These Features?
Gasless Limit Orders
Financial results to validate the success of an app would be hard to measure with this -> contract might not execute for a long time if at all. Requires additional smart contract functionality -> slow down development.
Cross-chain Trading
Dec 2023->, cross-chain swaps account for approximately 5% of the total decentralized exchange (DEX) volume. This feels like something that isn’t foundational if you base it off this data.
Discover Page
If the core user already knows what they want to trade, they’ll likely paste a contract address instead of wanting to explore coins on a discover page.
A Core User Journey to Swapping
With this journey in mind, we can eliminate any need for a discovery page for MVP.
Information Architecture Of The App
These would be the tabs that would make up the App. Discover would not be implemented for V1, but it was taken into account as it was probably going to be in V2.
Wireframes - Swapping Options
I explored two layout options for swapping.
The one of the left puts the swapped input amount at the centre of the screen always, to drive that action as being the most important task on the page. The custom numeric keypad ensures quick and error-free entry.
The one on the right is a representation of what is on Web currently.
I felt as though going with something closer to Web would keep the user pattern familiar, which is highly valuable. I also really like the simplicity of it. I ended up going with what was on Web currently, and slightly adapting it by reducing elements within it to simplify it even more.
The First Hi-fi Screens
This was the first round of Hi-fi screens.
Turning Feedback Into Iterations
We got feedback that stakeholders wanted it to still feel like it was connected to the brand, but they wanted a “sleeker look and feel”.
I accomplished this with a very minimally updated colour palette, more size contrast in the type-scale, and new UI interactions. I gave the interactions a bouncy and fast feel to them to keep the app feeling both fun and powerful.
Results
While I cannot discuss results as they are under an NDA, I can say that we far outreached our goals.
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Migrated & retained web users
