Goal calculator
How can one set up a crypto investment goal by using a digital wallet and decentralised finance?
What you'll find in this case
Desk research
Project summary
Dot-coin is a company that's building the most intuitive way to experience the world of decentralised finance. Its mission is to empower people to own better money.
The company has built an app - mobile only - to send, save and invest with stablecoins and crypto.
Although it already has the main features of a De-Fi wallet, a digital product always has room for new needed ones.
And so we have our problem to solve:
How might we help our users to achieve their personal financial goals?
Project type:
Duration:
My role:
Design challenge
April 2nd - April 4th (2022)
Research, user interface, prototype
01. Discovery
Desk research
Given the problem, the following were the first questions that popped in my head:
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Who are the people investing in crypto? And what are their goals?
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Do they have any sort of knowledge in investments?
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What do I need to know when setting a crypto financial goal?
Profile
To find the answer to these questions I decided to jump on a desk research. I visited a bunch on websites, however the three below guided me the most on how to better understand the profile of crypto investors.
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academic.oup.com
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intotheminds.com
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colormatics.com
I was expecting to find a solid profile of users, however I came across quite the opposite. The only profile certainty I had was:
the average cryptocurrency investor is a male man who belongs to the millennial generation and is accustomed to using digital tools.
It is presumed that these investors have more trading experience, trade more frequently (especially in assets with high risk and skewed return profiles) and own riskier portfolios than the average individual investor.
These people also invest for different reasons and goals. Some are in it for the short run and make trades on a constant basis expecting a rapid gain. Others, who are new and inexperienced investors, expect this rapid gain but tend to sell at a loss as soon as the market falls, which makes them lose money. Another part of the investors invest with a horizon of several years, and understand better how the volatility of the coin can benefit them.
Another interesting finding is the correlation of the Covid pandemic with who's investing in crypto:
“In March 2020, there was a slight drop during the first Covid wave, and after that, the overall interest in cryptos increased very quickly. Many people started working from home and asked themselves existential questions: how to secure their retirement? How to invest?”
- Emanuel Erdem
Setting goals
Before someone starts investing in, well, anything it's important that they have established clear goals that define what they want out of an investment. Some questions that could help are:
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How much money am I willing to invest (and potentially lose)?
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Do I want to engage in short-term investing/trading, watching the market daily or even hourly to make investments and trades?
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Do I want to put my money into some currencies I believe will be successful in the long run?
Ultimately, investment clarity comes down to how much money someone wants to invest, how they want to invest it, what they want to invest in and how they want to manage their investments.
Investors need to know whether they're in for the long or short term.
Historical data of the traditional stock market shows that although the market can have massive swings (and even crashes), if you keep your money in it for a long period of time and manage your investments well, you will see a return on your initial investment. Long-term investing in cryptocurrencies takes the same approach: You invest your money in a currency, watch it, manage it, ride out the ups and downs, hoping your due diligence has paid off and profit is coming.
Short-term trading is the opposite. This approach aims to maximize your gains off the volatile nature of the market. The idea is to invest in currencies whose value is low or that you believe are likely to increase, then sell to make a profit in a relatively short time frame.
- blog.liquid.com
02. Definition
Proto-persona
Name:
Devon Lane
Role:
Software Engineer @ Phillips
Age:
35 years old
Education:
Bachelor of Computer Science
Status:
Married
Children:
A 1 year old son
Location:
Atlanta, GA
Devon Lane, Software Engineer @ Phillips
Credit: Usman Yousaf via Unsplash
"I am building my wealth and, as the saying goes, I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket.”
- Devon Lane
Bio
Devon is a married, work from home dad, who's been investing for a while. He's already managed to build an emergency fund for him and his family, and is now halfway to building his retirement plan. His investments are mainly allocated to centralized brokerage houses and, although he's got some money in crypto, his goals for this type of investment are not yet defined. At the moment he's better understanding how this works before making any important moves. One things he's certain about, though, is that he would like very much to finish up building his retirement plan in his current brokerage house, and be able to buy a house for him and his family in the span of up until 7 years investing in crypto.
02. Definition
Job stories
01. As a(n)...
investor
02. I want to...
know how much money I need to save/invest
03. So that...
I can buy a house in up to 7 years investing in crypto
Successful premise
Know how to invest my money so that I have the best financial return to achieve my goal within a certain period of time.
02. Definition
Perspective grid
The goal of creating a perspective grid is to condense the researched data and create a strong shared understanding of the user's goals and barriers, and generate ideas for removing their impediments.
The chosen perspective grid is the "problem space” one, which focuses on the problem space of a person who wants to invest money to buy a house in a determined time period, and who needs a clear path, access to information and some instruction.
Having this data sorted out helped me create the user journey map later on.
Validation of the perspective grid
1st row
"An investor who wants to achieve his financial goal with crypto currency in up to 7 years (user) needs to understand how to better invest his money and time (jobs/needs), because he wants to know how much he could lose along the way considering crypto's volatility and how that can affect his time frame goal (gap). If we could meet his needs, he could have the knowledge of his path and progress (resulting value). To provide that value, we would need to show how much money he will need to save during a period of time to achieve such goal (implied capabilities). Perhaps a calculator that does the math and shows the money that needs to be saved versus the time frame, considering an average of the previous oscillations, could help him out."
2nd row
"An investor who wants to achieve his financial goal with crypto currency in up to 7 years (user) needs to understand how to better invest his money and time (jobs/needs), because he wants to know how much he could lose along the way considering crypto's volatility and how that can affect his time frame goal (gap). If we could meet his needs, he'd have the confidence to complete the journey (resulting value). To provide that value, we could show a track progress of the goal that was set (implied capabilities). Perhaps a section that shows live updates of how the set goal is oscillating in synchrony with the currency could help him out."
03. Ideation
Journey map
Once the perspective grid is put together and validated - done by putting the grid's data into sentences and making sure they make sense - it's much easier to build a journey map.
The user journey map helped me visualize the process that the user goes through in order to accomplish their goal, in this case - again - investing money in crypto assets to buy a house.
Having the ups and downs of the journey mapped helped me harness empathy to gain relevant insights about the user and the product, and in which areas to focus in order to deliver value to the user.
03. Ideation
User flow
Before designing any screen for the app, I thought it would be a good idea to develop a user flow to better understand how it would work for the user: from their login on the app, to simulating how much should be invested, until tracking their money's development as a crypto asset.
Having this sorted out made it much easier to design the screens and prototype later on.
04. Design
Sketches
Below you can check out some sketches I worked on before designing the app's wireframes on Figma, both medium and high fidelity.
I think this process helps me think better about the possibilities, and I don't feel tied down to technicalities right from the start.
04. Design
Medium fidelity wireframes
After working on some sketches it's time to bring the ideas to Figma in order to check how they fit in the mobile screens.
This intermediate step helped me to adjust the elements I had thought of as well as decide what to improve, remove or add before moving on to the high fidelity version of the app.
04. Design
Style Guide
Grid and layout
Count
4
Margin
20 px
Gutter
16 px
Type
Stretch
Width
Auto
Typography
Colors and effects
Iconography
04. Design
Screens
My focus while creating the screens and prototype was mainly on the goal calculator, as it's the goal of this challenge, rather than on the other transactions a De-Fi wallet can possibly do, such as buying, sending, converting crypto assets and so on. However, one of my findings in the discovery phase is that keeping track of the user's goal is also quite important. Therefore, a goal tracker is something you will find below in addition to the goal calculator.
Splash screen and login
Home screen, goal calculator and tracker
04. Design
Prototype
Conclusion
Final notes
This UX case was developed when I was applying for a job opportunity back in 2022. Truth be told, I didn't land the job. I did, however, got second place and a great feedback from the evaluators.
I believe that that the two main challenges from this case are related to:
1. Learning more about crypto coins and De-Fi, as well as how they work.
2. Applying frameworks such as the Perspective Grid and the User Journey Mapping to reach a solution.
Throughout the development of this solution I had to keep the "trust the process" mantra in mind the whole time.
It also helped me improve some of my UI knowledge, such as components and mobile design, through practicing both low and high fidelity wireframes.