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The first standalone private vault
Hardware wallet
PROJECT OVERVIEW

For the last nine months, I have been working with and consulting for an innovative startup in the Blockchain industry - Bitfold. The company’s mission is to deliver the best privacy-focused and security-oriented products to help their users navigate safely through the digital world.The company’s main product is the first standalone private vault for all digital assets and identity, based on patented hardware technology.

MY CONTRIBUTION

I was leading the whole design process from scratch. From the first meeting, I was actively engaged in discussions and planning relating to the creation of the physical device of the vault with the industrial design team.

THE CHALLENGE
Bitfold was one of the most challenging and demanding projects in the last few years. My team had to create an MVP of the first standalone private vault that guarantees safe navigation through the digital world. I had to work on creating a UX design strategy, collaborate with a team of industrial designers who were working on a physical device, and create a new design system (we were not allowed to use iOS and Android design guidelines).

The main challenge for me, from a personal perspective, was to dive into, research, consult Blockchain experts and grow my understanding of this evolving niche.

In addition to the personal challenges outlined above, cybersecurity restrictions had to be taken into account and therefore it was not possible to use any cloud based tools (Sketch, Figma, Zeplin, Abstract, Overflow, Miro, etc.). I had to find a new way of collaborating with the dev team and delivering designs to them without compromising security.
THE DISCOVERY
I organised a number of meetings to engage and consult with experts in the field in order to better understand the market, the business goals and the unique demands of Blockchain technologies and related fields. This information was essential in order to focus on UX strategy - a vision, goals and a plan of action.

To understand the specifics of the product, I focused on an in-depth analysis of the competitors already in Blockchain. The leaders in the industry, such as the Ledger device and the mobile app Exodus were chosen as the main source of research of the current state of the art in the market. Creating a vault and user account and the transaction process were most useful for providing me with insight into these emerging technologies. I also looked into the ergonomic aspects of the design of the Ledger device and ease of use as provided by user feedback.

In order to best select appropriate design tools for the project, research was carried out, the design team discussed and prepared a plan as to how to organise the design process for this project.
THE SOLUTION
Competitive analyses and insights from discussions with experts gave me a good start to prepare a service design map. I arranged a couple of design thinking workshops to rethink the interaction between the user and the product for an MVP. These changes made a big impact not just on the digital area of the project, but also on the work of the industrial design team.

After establishing the scope for an MVP version, user stories, user flow were developed in order to verify hypotheses using low fidelity prototypes. We had five key flows that had to be implemented for an MVP:
- Creation of a vault
- Generation of a seed
- Management the vault
- Making transactions (sending and receiving money)
- Signing of transactions.


UX x Industrial design
‍This project provided the opportunity to be a part of the process where two design disciplines crossed. Every decision about interaction between a user and the product had an impact on the ergonomy of the the physical device including technical and technological restrictions:
- The location of on/off buttons and its impact on an effective onboarding process
- Front and back camera on the device and customers’ use of them
- A separate button to sign a transaction and the guarantee of a secure process

All these questions demand an iterative approach, time, research and continuous testing.

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Design guidelines
‍‍We created a new design system for which it was necessary to avoid the design principles of iOS and Android guidelines. For this reason, we consulted a lawyer who shared information with us about the design patents of mobile interaction, keyboard, animation, inputs etc.


A new keyboard
To design a new keyboard was one of the biggest challenges of the visual aspects of the design. We were able to use a QWERTY keyboard template, as the patent was registered over 25 years ago and had not been renewed, consequently, it was now public domain. But there were areas that required more detailed consideration. Namely:
- Switching of languages
- Switching to non-alphanumeric characters
- Different types of keyboard depending on the context: numerical, alphabetical, alphabetical with auto suggest, a complete keyboard.
THE RESULT
The MVP version is now available ➝

The above outline my role, responsibilities and engagement in the project which is having a wide ranging impact on the product vision and strategy.
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Details of the product can be seen here ➝
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