Oasis - NFTs App

 Oasis - NFTs App

Donate and collect NFTs to help make big things happen.

Project Type: Academic
Roles: UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Brand Designer, Design Strategist, UX Writer
Timeline: 5 days (17th - 21st May 2022)
Tools: Figma, Google Forms
Team: Karolina Kopacz & Chinasa Anaele

I participated in a Designathon hosted by Avocademy. With a goal to create a digital solution for improving education and accessibility of NFTs - I worked collaboratively with a fellow Junior UX Designer Chinasa Anaele. We developed a proof concept mobile app that would allow people to support local initiatives and donate to education by collecting digital assets. My primary contributions were conducting research, wireframing and prototyping.

Business Goals: Build trust and knowledge among people around NFTs.

General Task: Donate to support various causes by purchasing original watermarked NFTs.

Target User: Students and working professionals.

Technology Constraints: Internet, smart phones

Marketing: Creating a mobile app, social marketing through various platforms, podcast and youtube channel with tutorials and marketing content.

Success Factor: Donate to a cause successfully via the app while purchasing and collecting NFTs. Users will be able to help grow a supportive community.

We followed Design Thinking and Double Diamond processes to be able discover the problem and ideate collaboratively on a solution within a short timeline given.

Brainstorming

We approached this challenge by exploring the problem space first to get a better understanding of the main pros and cons of NFTs and to gain more informed insights. We analyzed apps already available on the market to see which problems they’re trying to solve. We wanted to understand how we might improve education of NFTs to make it more open, understandable, safe and accessible and less-financially constraining.

The Challenge

The era of a new decentralized web and the future of the new internet generation is here. Unlike Web 2.0, where a few big companies control information on the centralized server, Web 3.0 is decentralized. It will allow people to finally take the full control of their data as well as get safe access to safe borderless payments.

However, even though selling NFTs seems lucrative, it has several issues which may stop people from buying them such as security, hidden fees and lack of transparent information and guidance which would attract less tech-savvy customers.

The Goal

• To design a platform where digital artwork can be easily sold and purchased.

• To simplify the process especially for the new comers.

• To allow people quickly donate to local causes and help spread the education of NFTs and be part of a welcoming community of digital art collectors.

Understand the people

After initial brainstorming to generate ideas we moved to user research. We created surveys and conducted user interviews to get to know the market and to understand our potential users better. We wanted to find out more about people’s knowledge of NFTs as well as learn about their experience with them and see what causes concerns for them.

Survey

We received responses from over 20 participants. The purpose of the survey was to find out more about people’s attitudes towards NFTs and learn about their general experiences with it.

Survey Insights:

With the answers from the survey, we were able to identify some of the issues people face when it comes to NFTs:

• People have difficulty understanding what NFTs really are.

• Users want to support artists via NFTs but are not sure what value it brings to them.

• Users are worried that it’s still an unproven tech.

• Some users still do not see the value of NFT but think it may change in the future.

• Some people already used NFTs to donate for emergencies or good causes.

• Some people mentioned the issue with the lack of physical object when buying digital art via NFTs.

• Some users believe NFTs can help the artists be more creative and have more freedom.

• Users are worried about openness and security of NFTs.

• Users would like to see more the sense of community in NFTs vs being just about the value.

Interview Questions:

• What do you know about NFTs?

• How do you hear about the new trends related to NFTS?

• Have you ever purchased/sold any NFTs?

• In what ways do you think NFTs will help educationally?

• Why do you buy NFTs?

• What apps do you use for NFTs?

• What kind of NFTs do you buy? Do you buy specific ones?

• Do you think education about NFTs is needed? If yes, why?

• Do you have any ideas on how NFTs or web3 can improve education.

Interview insights:

• People want a secure medium of buying NFTs for other purposes, not just art.

• There is a need for NFT education among people, especially the older demographic.

• The education sector can be improved by adopting digital means of payment, as well as educating the students and their parents on the merits of the web3 environment.

To understand our potential users better and to empathize with their feelings and emotions, we created empathy map.

After creating our user persona and empathy map, we needed to redefine our problem statement to better reflect the needs and motivations of our target user.

“How we might educate children and adults on what NFTs are in order to empower them to have better prospects for the future and more financial freedom.”

User Flows

As a next step, we came up with user stories to identify the primary task. Based on the task, we created a user flow diagram to visualize better the journey user would make using our product and to set the information architecture. We kept it minimal and simple to adhere to the time constraints of this project.

Task: Donate to a project you want to support.

On the basis of all the information gathered we started drafting our low-fidelity sketches to turn them into high-fidelity wireframes.

UI Inspiration and Branding

We took inspiration from modern NFTs and web3 apps but we wanted to keep the design simple and clean enough not to discourage older and less techy users.

Mood Board

Style Guide

To ensure seamless user experience we created a harmonious color palette adhering to our brand guidelines.

Color Palette

Typography

Key Learnings & Next Steps

The design hackathon proved to be a great opportunity for me to collaborate on a project with another designer. It was a very rewarding experience to be able to brainstorm together, feedback each other, share our designs and talk about our process.

Lessons Learnt

• This project has taught me a lot about the NFT marketplace. I learnt what selling and buying digital artwork through NFTs really entails for both sides.

• The importance of transparency: Artists are becoming interested in NFTs due to its potential for making a profit. However, they are hesitant due to conflicting and vague information on the web. That’s why transparency is important to help people feel empowered to take advantage of the newest technologies without feeling left behind.

• I have learnt yet again about the importance of effective cross-departmental collaboration to be able to come up with truly meaningful and empathetic solutions. Having people with different mindsets and skillsets really opens up new possibilities for creating truly diverse solutions and taking into consideration divergent points of view.

• Maintaining communication with developers should be a crucial part of the deign process to be aware of any potential limitations from the very beginning.

• Working within constraints: This 5-days challenge was a great experience in understanding business and technical constraints in creating a digital solution in a limited timeframe.

Next Steps:

• My next step would be to perform rounds of usability testings and analyze the insights to make further iterations.

• I would like to make the app functional using a low code tool or collaborate with a developer to be able to make it accessible and usable for everyone interested.

Thanks for checking out my work. ✨

Images: Unsplash
Illustrations: Freepik, StorySet