UX Research
Information Architecture
Wireframing
Visual Design
Interaction Design
Hi-res Design
Prototype
Design Systems
June 2022
Trifecta, an NFT lending platform, aims to address the high barriers to entry for retail investors through crowd loans guided by a crypto expert. On the other hand, borrowers who often face a shortage of NFT liquidity can enhance capital efficiency with an "Instant Matching Loan" and other NFT financialization tools.
This case study took a closer look at the crowd loans feature, which is similar to crowdfunding in its basic principles. There are some major issues with campaigns not being successfully funded and the potential for fraudulent campaigns, which later we found that "credibility" is the key point to solve this problem. The engagement aspect was added to form trust and support the business goal to become a center for retail investors and NFT experts.
The feature is an intermediary, a two-sided market for initiators to crowdfund from retail investors in order to lend out to targeted NFT collections. However, with an open market nature, anyone can create a campaign. The upside is, it helps drive competitive yield for investors but the downside is, it’s hard to spot the credibility of initiators and campaigns.
Retail investors invest their funds with initiators who then lend out the money to specific NFTs. As a result, the interest generated from these investments is distributed as yield to the retail investors. And three lucky winners may receive some extra profits or a defaulted NFT.
How might we help a campaign successfully funded in an open market?
The kickoff was a fact-finding and scope definition exercise which I used as an opportunity to ask questions about the business logic from a macro level. There're a couple of things in particular that I need to keep in mind before continuing.
The research conducted to gain insights from retail investors to understand investors’ motivation, behavior, pain points around NFTs, and understand relationship between investors and crypto/NFTs influencers they've been following.
To understand deep motivation, behavior, personality, needs, and pain points.
People aspired to get returns from holding assets, interested in NFT but doing research by themself is time consuming and there're a lot of scams. Flipping NFTs also require effort and patient. Influencers help them distill informations, but in order to trust influencers' recommendations, investors need time to observe and looking for evidences of success record. Linked-mind community help people stick to influencers longer, and the longer people spend time observe influencers, the more trust they feel.
Identify existing products or services that reflect a portion of the new product’s functions or customer segmentation.
Most platforms have fundraiser's profile page which allow people to see all campaign history they have been created. Links to external sources allow people to see additional info of the fundraiser.
After discussed about actionable plan and opportunities, we used the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to decide and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, divided into 4 (four) quadrants with different work strategies. Here are the results after we tried to discuss the actionable plans and try to prioritized it using The Eisenhower Decision Matrix:
Based on the primary goal to increase successfully funded campaign rate as an aspiring hub for retail investors and initiators, the research shows that ‘credibility’ is the key principle that helps investors make investment decision.
There are 3 (three) actionable plans that we listed as “Do It” section (urgent and important).
Giving campaign browse options like browse by returns of investment, or browse by initiators so the user can choose to search campaigns by returns rate or initiator’s expertise\credibility. (On findings, the insights show that people were interested in ROI, yet wanted guidance from trusted sources in a particular vertical.)
People wanted to audit reputation in order to form trust. The insights also inform that the more they take time to observe influencer’s behavior and inputs, the more they gain trust. Direct engagement such as conversation & sharing information channels also make people stick around to gain insights from like-minded community.
Having an extended initiator’s profile page that offer engagement channels will help investors audit initiators, at the same time helps initiator form community and gain trust from on going interactions with investors. This can also served as marketing tools for initiators and helps attract more users, since Trifecta aiming to become a hub for retail investors and initiators.
Apart from desirability of high returns, credibility is the most critical concern for investors which require effort to validate. Displaying analytics that reflect success record such as AUM, numbers of funded campaigns, numbers of followers were added to help investors differentiate credible initiator at a glance when browsing.
Before any rounds of iteration took place, I wanted us to have a full picture of everything that happens from when someone looking for campaign (pre-depositing and depositing) to the point when they've deposited (post-depositing and investment completion).
01
Enabling campaign exploration through ROI and social connection
Explore based on motivation
Initially, people invest based on ROI and NFT collections. However, searching for campaigns based on initiators can help retail investors identify credible initiators and align with their investment strategy, making it easier to navigate the investment landscape.
Enabling interactions to form bonding and trust
The expanded community page provides a communication channel for users to connect with like-minded groups, promoting information exchange and campaign discovery.
The initiator can create custom badges to symbolize the group, open for incorporating gamification and providing potential for future marketing efforts on the platform.
Finding Alpha
A user profile page records their activities, investment returns, and community affiliation. Users can follow high-performing individuals or those with shared interests. This feature enables user discovery.
02
Crowd lending experience
Reduce cognitive load, while creating awareness of funding stages
Each campaign must clearly outline its details and loan parameters for user review. The campaign also includes conditions for each funding stage.
To avoid information overload, I used the Law of Pragnanz to simplify complex information into simple forms.
A timeline with additional notes was added to assist users in understanding the campaign stage and provide education.
The key interaction on the top right of the page adapts to the campaign stage and user investment history, reducing the risk of error and streamlining the user experience.
Encourage platform stickiness with 'reallocating'
We provide a reallocation option that allows users to redirect funds to another campaign without withdrawing from the platform. The default campaign list is filtered by similar deposit campaigns to simplify the process for users.
Oversee investment
The dashboard was created to give users a comprehensive view of their investments and monitor their platform activity.
03
Borrowing experience
Instant matching loan
A common issue for borrowers is the delay in obtaining funds. Instant matching loans allow borrowers to instantly receive funds if their borrowing criteria match the loan conditions.
Trifecta style guide and component library was built as a one-stop for developers and team reference with scalability in mind. All components have been built effectively using Figma Auto-Layout features.
Atoms: Foundational elements such as color palette, typography, shadows, and spacing.
Molecules: A combinations of multiple atoms, include things like buttons, input fields, switches, etc.
Organisms: The highest complexity levels of any given interface component, consist of multiple molecules.
I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to help shape product from 0 to 1. Naturally, I’ve come away with a few lessons which I’ve found to be widely applicable.
01
Make the most from resources that we have
Delivering value to users and business was an ultimate goal. With limited resources and time, providing valuable data was the most impactful and possible. However, Not all data can easily pull, so it was essential to work with the team to ensure that the presented data were meaningful and feasible.
02
Live the same restraints
Not all legacy systems can be altered, many times the most effective approach was to embrace those constraints and work together with engineers to find counter solutions.