Overview

For this Case Study I’ll describe my UI/UX design sprint process I went through for Abra, one of the oldest cryptocurrency app in the States. After my design sprint, users were able to buy coins within 10 seconds where before it took them over 20+ seconds.

Objectives

I will explore the human-centered design process by evaluating the usability of apps. I chose to do a case study on Abra. Abra is cryptocurrency wallet and exchange intent to be the simplest place to invest in cryptocurrency. 

Problem & Hypothesis

While working in blockchain industry for over 3+ years I realized there are many unintuitive apps that are difficult to use. As I had difficulties buying coins using the Abra’s app, I assumed other users also have same issues. Through this UX case study, I will help pursue Abra’s mission statement “cryptocurrency investing simplified.”

User research

Persona

As a starting point, I leveraged our personas that we have currently *(the power user / crypto bros, the interest holders, new users) based on our past user interviews we had performed. Each user was asked to invest or attempt to invest in cryptocurrency before.

User Story

I followed a user story provided by the product manager to build out the IA, LoFi, HiFi, as well as a guideline to leverage / prepare for the usability test(s).

User Testing

Over two days we tested 5 users who already have abra accounts over Zoom / Useberry. Based on our personas we created, we checked if they qualify as valid test users prior to testing. Following is a simple user demographic of our test users.

User Testing - Validation

After validating test users, based on job story I conducted a guerrilla usability testing. Before the tests, I asked all the participants to imagine the following scenario.

Scenario: A friend you trust recommended you to buy XRP. Hearing the fact, you are considering buying XRP.

All participants were given the following tasks:

• How do you check the price of XRP?

• How do you add new cryptocurrency to the home screen?

• Let say you decided to buy XRP. If you want to add money to your account how do you do that?

• Now you have a balance in your account, how do you buy $5 worth of XRP?

Analysis — Identify and prioritize pain points

Affinity mapping

I categorized the results of user interviews by pain points using a spreadsheet. Following are the analyzed key results.

0/7 able to buy crypto smoothly where some users gave in the middle of the test.

• 1/7 able to check price of new cryptocurrencies.

• 2/7 able to find button back to the home screen.

• 3/7 able to add new coins to the portfolio.

2x2 Matrix

After categorizing the pain points I prioritized them using 2x2 matrix.

As a result, I decided to focus on the improvement of features that relates to buying and selling.

Task Flows

I created a task flow to identify at which points users are struggling to buy cryptocurrency.

Sketching Design

Research

I explored an UI design of an existing fintech and cryptocurrency apps (Coinbase, Robinhood, Acorn & Mint) to find if best practices that solve my pain points already exists.

Lo-fi

Based on my research, I sketched out Lo-fi mockups to explored the best possible solutions that will solve identified pain points.

Hi-fi, Prototyping & Validation

After exploring Lo-fi mockups I used Sketch to create Hi-fi mockups and working prototype to test my solution with users. Following are the changes I made to the app.

Portfolio (Home screen)

All users had difficulties checking the price of coins or buying them. I rearranged the home screen, removed a screen and changed wordings for some buttons so users can complete their tasks with minimal steps intuitively.

Results

Before: 0/7 took more than 10 seconds to start buying coins.

After: 7/7 able to start buying coins within 10 seconds.

Before: 1/7 able to check price of new cryptocurrencies.

After: 6/7 able to check price of new cryptocurrencies.

Wallet

Most users were confused by the arrangement of navigation items / buttons on the wallet screen(s). We re-arranged the wallet screen and removed some of the buttons to keep the overall organization simple enough to understand.

Results

Buying and Selling (Exchange)

Every user had a issue buying / selling coins (in the Abra app we refer to it as exchange). We altered the exchange flow to a buying and selling flow so the feel of the app would be closer to a typical shopping experience app.

Results

Before: 2/7 Users are able to reach the confirm exchange screen.

After: 6/7 Users are able to reach the Review buy screen.

Results

Before: 2/7 Users are able to reach the confirm exchange screen.

After: 6/7 Users are able to reach the Review sell screen.

Conclusion

The main goal for this exercise was for a user test inherently focused on buying and selling feature of the app, This design revision was proposed and was changed to reflect what is currently in the app to date.