Analyzing the Four Levels of Web3 User Experience: How to Create a Good User Experience?

Original Title: "Summary: The Four Levels of Web3 User Experience" (The Levels of Web3 User Experience)

Author: Jon Crabb

Translation: ChinaDeFi

This article attempts to create a larger framework for Web3 UX.

There are too many new elements between Web3 and Web2, such as gas fees, tokens, wallets, and smart contracts, and we need to consider more than just the UI. There are now more layers to think about.

We need to improve all these aspects to create a good user experience.

How to visualize the different layers of Web3 user experience

The user journey is a long and winding road

Consider a standard application. Not a Web3 one, just a popular app on our smartphones that we use frequently. The actual UI of this app is just the final element of a long series of experiences, starting from the real world, passing through countless physical spaces, entering digital interactions, going through a multitude of different hardware and software, until finally finding our thumb resting on a button designed by someone else.

We might have an idea, like "play music" or "check directions" or "buy clothes," influenced by something in our physical environment.

This "user experience" begins long before we take the phone out of our pocket.

This point has not been sufficiently emphasized in the study of Web3. To validate this point, let's take an example.

International Remittances

One is the "user experience" of sending money to residents of other countries, and the other is the "user experience" of the specific application we use.

Sending stablecoins on the blockchain is already better than sending currency. It is almost instantaneous, and the fees are low. Sending currency might take days, with fees at every step. Some transfer apps are doing well now. Understanding such applications is much easier than understanding cryptocurrencies. Most people have smartphones and some local currency. But most people do not have exchange accounts, wallets, or cryptocurrencies.

Some user experiences are better than the current standard. But many other steps are worse than the current standard.

In my estimation, cryptocurrencies fail because they are not easily accessible and do not integrate well with other parts of the "system."

If we really want to understand the Web3 user experience, we need to start from the big picture and see which aspects need attention.

Overall User Experience Model

The Nielsen-Norman model has three levels:

• Interaction
• Journey
• Relationship

These three cover the entire user experience from the real world to the digital world. This framework is often used in CX design (customer experience) and service design. In most cases, users have already made many decisions before visiting our application or website.

If we zoom in on a successful company, we often find that this company is usually solving a core problem. In real life, this is often an annoying issue, and the product has innovated some ways to alleviate this deep frustration.

Annoyingshitirl --> thing/appthatmighthelp --> theactual_UI

Because the pioneers solved the initial problem, they had the greatest impact on people's lives. But achieving this is actually much more difficult and often requires significant technological, policy, or social shifts.

The classic example is a fictional quote from Henry Ford:

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

What people really wanted was "to get to their destination faster." A car could solve that. But this solution could only truly take off after raising awareness, creating a better road ecosystem, completely reforming the manufacturing industry, and through appropriate legislation.

Do you see the connection here?

The ultimate design of the car is obviously important, but to make this new mode of transportation ultimately successful, it must demonstrate its benefits to everyone, and a lot of infrastructure, processes, regulations, and related technologies must be improved.

If we look at a more modern platform like Netflix, we can see multiple layers of experience. The core user story is similar to "people want high-quality entertainment." The initial solution to this problem was DVDs, but the current solution is digital streaming platforms. This requires expert tuning and curation. Users also want to watch high-definition videos, which requires good compression from Netflix and a good network connection on the user end. They want to find things they like, which requires a good UI, excellent information architecture, and clever recommendation algorithms.

In both cases, the "user experience" encompasses much more than we imagine.

The Four Levels of Web3 User Experience

In the case of Web3, I suggest there are four different layers. Each brings specific user experience challenges.

A simple framework for visualizing the different layers to address

These layers stack on top of each other. The bottom layer is the most important but also the hardest to influence, as it is most related to the technical limitations of the blockchain being used. The top layer is the visual layer, which can be easily modified—of course, what we put there completely depends on the layers below it.

Below are some specific challenges present in each layer, from bottom to top.

Technical Layer

• Speed
• Fees
• Stability
• Anonymity

Access Layer

• Wallet
• Connection
• Mnemonics and security
• Interoperability
• Network scalability
• Mobile experience

Functional Layer

• Transactions
• Liquidity
• Liquidity mining
• Smart contract interactions and permissions
• User identity
• Governance
• Token types
• Web3 login
• Displaying NFTs
• Ownership of in-game assets
• Sending messages across layers or chains

Visual Layer

• Visual design
• Information hierarchy
• Navigation
• Content
• Help and guidance

Breakdown Analysis

Technical Layer

When looking at the actual technical layer, I believe the UX on DeFi has already improved. Large remittances often require waiting times and fees, and in some cases, security checks from intermediary banks. On the blockchain, it sends quickly, cheaply (though not always), and can be verified by anyone.

The UX challenges at this level are:

• Increasing speed to match or exceed the VISA network (tps)
• Improving the stability and security of the blockchain
• Reducing fees to below those of Western Union or Wise
• Making transactions verifiable

These are the biggest challenges that need to be addressed. However, they are not related to the interface. In this case, the second layer of the blockchain is a direct attempt to improve the overall user experience.

When considering uncertain things like on-chain identity, these types of issues become even more important.

Access Layer

Imagine it is the year 1995, and you’ve heard about a wonderful new thing called the internet. First, you need a personal computer with a modem, and you need to connect it to a phone line. Once you "dial up" to "go online," you can’t take phone calls. To really do anything, you have to set up an "email address," possibly "pop3" or "imap," use a "browser," and if you want to be a professional, learn "telnet" and "ftp." Once you manage that, things will never be the same again.

The UX challenges at this level are:

• Creating a wallet that is as easy to use as a banking app and/or browser
• Creating Web3 single sign-on
• Smooth currency channels
• Unified chains or creating "layer x" without manual bridging
• Human-readable addresses (ENS is a step in this direction)
• Educating people on self-regulation and privacy
• Getting cryptocurrencies into more people's hands
• Moving beyond the current internet browser paradigm

Functional Layer

When we talk about Web3 user experience, one thing to consider is that some things are inherently strange because they are brand new. New features always seem difficult to start with. A few years ago, no one had heard of NFTs or AMMs. Now we have them, and we also need to figure out how to best utilize them.

The UX challenges at this level are:

• Making transactions intuitive
• Abstracting complex strategies
• Simplifying operations (e.g., using zappers, auto-wrapping tokens)
• Creating flexibility in the system (sending tokens to the wrong network)
• Making participation in governance easy and rewarding
• Making NFTs meaningful and useful
• Creating more "killer applications" beyond finance
• Transferring ownership of in-game assets to users rather than manufacturers
• Increasing ways to share and display NFTs
• Improving cross-chain and multi-layer compatibility (most users probably don’t want ten different forms of USDC)

An important note at this layer is that some non-custodial crypto applications have partially addressed some of the above issues. The downside is that in most cases, we are trading some decentralization for a better user experience. Crypto.com allows us to send tokens to other Crypto.com users for free. Most exchanges let us choose which network to withdraw on (mainnet or Polygon, etc.), Binance offers us tokens and gives us some interest, but we cannot control their policies. Celsius did the same thing, but it didn’t work out as well.

Visual Layer

Are we using consistent design patterns based on user research? Is the terminology too technical? Does everything look good on mobile?

The UX challenges at this level are:

• Following best practices for accessibility
• Reducing the use of jargon
• Highlighting important content
• Hiding irrelevant things
• Creating easy-to-follow instructions
• Promoting inclusivity
• Conveying "friendly" and "welcoming" rather than "scary" and "exclusive"
• Aesthetics
• Retaining personality while building for the masses

This is my first serious attempt to create a larger framework for Web3 UX, and I intend to continue developing on this foundation.

“All models are wrong, but some are useful.”