DeFi's UI/UX Issue
This article looks into the primary obstacle for the mass adoption of DeFi. The UI/UX issue.
If you’ve read my previous articles or about the DeFi space in general, then you may know that the innovative capabilities of people in this space is brilliant. Re-imagining and recreating the financial industry is not easy, but the developers and founders in DeFi have done a really good job thus far. Even the core beliefs of liberalizing finance, giving the people control of money, a truly transparent system, and giving equal access to everyone are very noble and just core beliefs and things should remain this way. However, the main issue that DeFi is running into is the UI/UX problem.
For those of you who don’t know, UI stands for User Interface which is the point at which humans interact with computers and applications. UX stands for User Experience which is fairly self-explanatory. A product should have a very good UI in order to improve the UX and this is a major problem with DeFi currently. The people who really understand DeFi and frequently use it know how good it is but in order for the general public to understand it, it can be an extremely complex task. Speaking from experience, I have no computer science or technical experience of any kind, so when I started learning about the intricacies of DeFi it took me about 6-7 months of constant reading, learning, and observing to simply get the basics down. I was willing to go through it because I believed that the tech could eventually help a lot of people, I loved the communities, and I enjoy learning about new and innovative things focused on reimagining structures of the past. However, everyone is not going to be like that. Everyone is not going to be willing to put in months of work just to understand this space. If it’s to do with people’s money all that is needed is ease of use and security. The security aspect is an entirely different issue that we will get into on a later date, but over time the security will keep improving. However, DeFi is not really easy to use.
The people who can use DeFi effectively are crypto natives (Those who have been in the space and kept up with it for a very long time), people with a good knowledge of coding and computer science, Traders, and a few outliers who have taken the time to learn. The masses come in all shapes and sizes and they all will want one thing, something that is easy and efficient.
Consider this scenario, there’s this guy named Enzo and Enzo has come from a financially unfortunate background and has always struggled with access to financial services through traditional means. One day Enzo eavesdrops on a conversation of two people talking about crypto. He finds out that all he needs to do is create a wallet and get some money in it and that’s it he has access to everything. So Enzo runs back home and creates his wallet and puts some money in it. From here on where does he go? The most popular smart contract platform is Ethereum so he has quick look through their website to see what services are provided and decides he wants to take out a loan on AAVE. He goes to execute the transaction and OH WAIT, Gas fees? WTF are gas fees? And why is it asking me to pay more than I have in my wallet just to execute the transaction, what is this? He then backs out and does some research to understand gas fees and finds out that Ethereum is unusable for him. At least until he has more money. So what’s the next step? are there any other smart contract platforms? A quick google search and bang. Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos, Harmony, Fantom, Terra and the list keeps going on. So where does Enzo go from here? Most people would give up at this point rather than researching about every platform but Enzo doesn’t. He decides on a platform but then faces a new challenge. WTF is bridging? WTF is wrapping? Is this how I move my money from one chain to another. When he figures this out he will then have to navigate through the individual problems of each product such as Impermanent Loss on a DEX, yield farming, transaction times, getting front run, smart contract bugs, and so much more. This entire process can be rather tedious for the majority of people. It’s like the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.
What I’m essentially suggesting here is that we need platforms that make using DeFi easy. Everyone shouldn’t have to go through the steep learning curve and they shouldn’t have to get rugged to start understanding this space. It should be easy from the start.
There needs to be a mobile app which allows the users to have all their wallets from every different Layer 1 in the same app, they can track their portfolios, or their liquidity pools, or loans on all the different platforms through this one app. They can use that app to make payments for whatever they want to buy whether digital or real and they can choose which chains’ wallet they want their funds to go from. Everything through the simple scan of a QR code. This app should have things like DEX aggregators and Yield aggregators on them so that when users want to use DEXs or Yield farms they have the most efficient route mapped out. I am essentially talking about an all-encompassing DeFi app where the funds are easy to manage and the experience is seamless. Think of it like a spider web, every intersection of the spider web is an individual protocol or blockchain and they are all held together by the core of the web. That is what this app needs to be, one piece of technology that’s at the center of everything DeFi. When it comes to handling finances, nobody should be intimated. I’ve had friends who tried to use Binance and they said it’s very complex to use, and Binance is the hub for newbies and degens.
So, We’ve established that the experience needs to be easier but it does not stop there. Education is another important aspect that should go hand in hand. On this app, users also need a section which has articles/videos that explain things like the newer concepts of DeFi, the novel innovations, project overviews, comparisons between different chains, how chains work, what are the new mechanisms and how do they work, and more things like that. These need to be explained in levels so a user can first read and understand at the beginner level and get acquainted with technology, then learn about it at a higher level and get better at using the technology.
A product that manages to solve the UI/UX problem and the education problem together will be the clear winner in the future. In an industry that could very well be the future of finance, a product that will be used by the masses is very obviously the one that will win. I’m confident that soon enough we will see this platform. The very first thing I noticed when using DeFi is that the individual websites of the projects are incredibly smooth, aesthetically pleasing, and fairly easy to navigate through. They’re miles better than any traditional financial company’s website. So when the Devs in DeFi get behind the UI/UX issue of the ecosystem as a whole then the product that comes out will be nothing short of brilliant.