Version 2.0
HIFI Bridge
Timeline
August 2023 - 4 weeks
1 Project Manager
2 UI Designers
My Role UX Researcher
User Workflow Designs
The Team
B2B
Finance/
Cryptocurrency
Project Type
The Client
HiFi Bridge: The Game-Changer in Cryptocurrency
In the ever-evolving landscape of tech startups, HiFi Bridge emerged. This young company embarked on a venture into the realm of cryptocurrency-to-FIAT merchant exchanges, challenging established players in the crypto wallet sector. HiFi's distinctive value centered on the elimination of mandatory customer sign-ups, offering a seamless purchasing experience. Furthermore, they exhibited a commitment to inclusivity by facilitating conversions from a diverse range of cryptocurrencies into the merchant's preferred currency, even accommodating different coin types. Join me on a journey as I delve into how our team helped HiFi Bridge navigate the intricacies of user experience design to realize their innovative vision.
HIFI’s project presented our team with several intricate challenges, driving us to devise innovative solutions. These challenges, while demanding, underlined the importance of our user-centric methodology:
1. Function Requirements: Balancing an extensive list of requirements, including an unprecedented pay widget, posed a significant challenge in ensuring a seamless user experience. (Add image of functions request list)
2. Empathizing with User Absence in an Emerging Cryptocurrency E-commerce Market: The absence of existing user data and behavior patterns added complexity in understanding user needs due to the project's unique nature. Furthermore, entering the cryptocurrency e-commerce sector meant navigating uncharted territory, including establishing trust and comprehending user behaviors.
3. Explaining UX to Stakeholders: Effectively conveying the UX process' value of meeting user needs, not just aesthetics to less familiar stakeholders required clear, persuasive messaging.
Despite these challenges, our commitment to a robust product enabled us to confidently tackle uncharted territory, delivering user-centric solutions tailored to the cryptocurrency e-commerce market's unique demands.
The Challenge
Essential functional prerequisites and in-depth exploration of an uncharted market.
Our solution encompassed a fully functional responsive merchant portal and a seamlessly integrated pay widget for e-commerce sites, delivering immediate value and laying the foundation for future development:
The Solution
Strategically Planning for Future Sprints and Pioneering MVPs for the Inaugural Launch
We created a user-friendly portal for merchants with essential e-commerce management features and a customizable pay widget to add to their e-commerce page, allowing consumers to quickly and easily pay for their items with alternative methods.
Desktop Merchant Portal & Pay Widget
We developed proto-personas and empathy maps for investor presentations to align with potential merchant users' needs.
Proto-Personas & Empathy Maps
We crafted user stories and clear acceptance criteria to visualize the functions priorities and guide subsequent development phases.
User Stories & Acceptance Criteria
Cybersecurity best practices were implemented to secure the pay widget and portal development from phishing and hacking attacks.
Cybersecurity Expertise
Improved accessibility design and auto layouts within the atomic design library (ADS) made the platform more inclusive and streamlined development for quicker, consistent coding, saving HIFI time and money.
Enhanced Accessibility
Stakeholders gained more profound insights into user needs, aiding effective decision-making and future product development, while proto-personas resonated with investors, facilitating funding and support.
Understanding
& Engagement
While positioning HIFI for future success, our solutions met immediate objectives, enhancing knowledge, accessibility, and stakeholder alignment with our plan for initial and future sprints.
Add Users to Business Portals & Limit Capability Options
Secure Login to Merchant Portal
Top 3 Priorities for Our Stakeholders
Customizable Pay Widget for Immediate Use on Merchant Sites
Targeting Luxury industries like Automotive, Real Estate, and Hospitality as Hifi's prime market, I explored the financial landscape within these sectors to identify applicable research for our project.
In the quest for pertinent research aligned with HIFI's requirements, I delved into the financial sector. My investigation extended to platforms like Reddit and Discord, where I conducted surveys among crypto consumers and stockholders to glean insights into their frustrations, needs, and behaviors.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the merchant perspective, I conducted interviews with CPAs and industry experts. These discussions focused on three key areas of interest for HIFI.
Research
Identifying stakeholder & user needs in comparable financial markets allowed us to identify our top three user flow priorities.
Current Company Security Measures
Software Usage, Needs, & Pain Points
Decision
Making for Networking & Partnerships
C+C Analysis: Top 3 Competitors
According to our Competitive Analysis, most consumers were concerned with having to sign up for additional services like Bitpay or Coinbase just to use their crypto-wallets for a single transaction. 80% of forum users conveyed this frustration and were petitioning merchants to avoid such companies.
It was also noted on our competitors pay widgets, that there was a lack of full price breakdown when considering the network fees to transition crypto-to-fiat currency, as well as real time market prices, an area HIFI could leverage and improve the merchant and customer sense of ownership within the crypto market.
Though our interview pool was limited, we were able to garner enough insights through secondary research to form hypotheses into our ideal target audience.
Proto-personas, lightweight representations of user segments, play a pivotal role in user-centered design by providing initial direction and alignment when comprehensive user research is constrained. While based on assumptions and educated guesses, proto-personas serve as a practical starting point for design discussions and decision-making. They help focus the design process, foster alignment among team members and stakeholders, facilitate early ideation, and encourage hypothesis testing. However, it is essential to validate proto-persona assumptions through research and iterate on them as more user insights become available, ensuring a continuously user-centric approach throughout the project.
The three proto-personas and Empathy Maps we created, allowed us step into the shoes of our users and formulate realistic Task flows and Acceptable Criteria for our User Stories:
Understanding the User
Harnessing Proto-Personas to Create Informed Empathy Maps, Task Flows, and User Stories/Acceptable Criteria
Angela Sharp
"The Decision Maker"
Indira Adams
"The Ally"
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Neal Mistry
"The Crypto-consumer"
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As we worked on turning HiFi Bridge's innovative idea into a digital reality, we realized how important user stories and acceptance criteria were to organize the functions list in order of importance and workload. We used our proto-personas, empathy maps, and task flows to make sure our navigation system worked seamlessly for users. These design tools helped us prioritize tasks and make strategic choices as we developed wireframes and made relevant adjustments to the Atomic Design System (ADS) in order for the layouts to be responsive and in compliance with accessibility standards.
We knew from the start that this project was in depth, so we divided it into phases. This approach allowed us to prioritize functions based on their necessity for the initial site launch and the level of effort required to develop them. By keeping our focus on the users and being results-driven, we were able to create a pragmatic plan that would meet everyone's needs.
Ideation
Creating Epics, User Stories, and Acceptable Criteria to break up the Scope of Work into Manageable portions
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In sprint one, we put all our energy into Security and the Customer Widget to ensure HiFi had a functional product. The rest of the features? Well, they're on the menu for the next sprint which we laid out in a Gantt Chart.
What I Learned
Through our project's journey, I acquired valuable knowledge and uncovered unforeseen opportunities that could greatly benefit HIFI. Here are some key takeaways and the doors that our design process has opened:
Learning & Opportunities
Exploring insights from this project and forging new paths
Working with an actual client provided invaluable lessons in managing expectations, aligning objectives, and delivering results that genuinely address HIFI's unique challenges and goals.
Real-World Client Collaboration:
This project underscored the importance of explaining the design process clearly and concisely to the client. While "UX" is a buzzword in the industry, this project reinforced the crucial role of user experience research in ensuring that we design products correctly and not just aesthetically. Taking time to explain our process to stakeholders ensured that everyone was aligned and understood the rationale behind our decisions.
Explaining the Significance of the UX Process:
Opportunities
As HIFI was not yet ready to conduct usability testing, we recommended leveraging software and user forums to identify candidates who closely matched the personas we had developed. This approach ensured that future iterations would be grounded in user perspectives. I developed a User Journey Map to help us visualize the testing results and any iterations we would need to make.
Usability Testing Strategies:
This project opened doors to potential partnerships for HIFI, particularly with preexisting project management software companies. Collaborating with them could enable HIFI to offer an all-in-one service to their merchants, streamlining operations and enhancing user experiences.
Networking & Partnership:
As we move forward, these insights and opportunities will guide our approach to future projects and collaborations. This project has enriched my understanding of user research and positioned me to impact the design and technology landscape significantly.