## Addresses in the Internet

<img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629234013/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20313.jpg" alt="">

If you think back to your first interactions with the Internet, one of them is probably setting up an E-Mail address. For many people, it was (and is) their first interaction with the Internet and a gateway to many other services (aka. sign-up with E-Mail).
Luckily we all got an E-Mail with the **mail@example.com** format instead of an IP address (which is the actual address computers use in the background) like **123.456.78.90**. Having a human-readable email address name or website name like **example.com** is, of course, way more convenient than having to remember the actual IP address — a “random” string of numbers.
The precedent of using names instead of IP addresses on the user side was set in the 1970s on the ARPAnet — a predecessor to the Internet.  In 1971, Peggy Karp suggested  standardizing the mapping of names to IP addresses. [1](#1), [2](#2) This custom was later adopted on the Internet in the form of domain names like **example.com**, **example.org** or **example.xyz**.
Mapping names to IP addresses for the sake of usability is by no means a new idea. On the contrary, it was conceived almost 20 years before the invention of the Internet as we know it today.

## Addresses in Blockchain


<a href="/apps/app-1617789909158-coinbase-wallet-f24t9fewj/screen/7gqf12qgb"><img class="article-image-right" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629234014/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20314.jpg" alt=""></a>

Wallets on the Blockchain serve a similar purpose to E-Mail Addresses on the Internet. They are the gateway to most Blockchain based products and services. You want to buy an NFT? You will have to "log in" to the NFT-marketplace and later pay with your wallet. Wallets are, similarly to E-Mail on the Internet, the first and primary way of interacting with this new technology (Blockchain) and therefore play an extremely vital role in the usability and adoption of the Blockchain ecosystem.

Unlike mail providers, cryptocurrency wallets don't give you a nice "name" like **mail@example.com**, but an address that in most cases looks similar to this `0xd8da6bf26964af9d7eed9e03e53415d37aa96045`. It’s not hard to see that, in terms of usability, this is way worse than an E-Mail-Address (which people are used to from the Internet). Wallet addresses are even longer and less memorable than IP addresses.But the usability issues of wallet addresses don't end with simply being hard to remember.

* Due to their length and complexity, it is easy to make mistakes when typing the address by hand.
* It is nearly impossible to recite it to someone without either person making a mistake.
* The addresses have no apparent structure to them, so it is way harder to spot mistakes. Even when you copy-paste the address but miss a character, chances are you will not recognise that you made a mistake.
* Making mistakes with crypto addresses is way more detrimental than other traditional financial services since Blockchain transactions are final. You cannot reverse a Blockchain transaction the same way you can reverse a bank transaction by simply calling your bank.
* Lastly, you receive a different address for every cryptocurrency. So you don't have just one monstrous address but potentially dozens.

Considering how vital wallets and their addresses are to the Blockchain ecosystem, it is baffling to me that no one realized earlier in the development of different Blockchain protocols how important human-readable names are to the usability and adoption of this technology. Mapping names to addresses has been commonplace since the 1970s. One can hardly expect first-time wallet users coming from the user-friendly applications on the Internet to be satisfied with the poor usability of crypto addresses.

## Solutions

One of the first major Blockchain projects after Bitcoin was Namecoin. [3](#3) The idea behind Namecoin was that the Blockchain could also be used to store mappings of data to names. Theoretically, Namecoin could have been used to map a cryptocurrency address to a .bit domain (example.bit for example), but unfortunately, it never gained widespread adoption due to various technical issues.
Vitalik Buterin even referenced Namecoin in his whitepaper for Ethereum and suggested a similar service could be built on Ethereum: [4](#4)

> _The earliest alternative cryptocurrency of all, Namecoin, attempted to use a Bitcoin-like Blockchain to provide a name registration system, where users can register their names in a public database alongside other data. The major cited use case is for a DNS system, mapping domain names like "bitcoin.org" (or, in Namecoin's case, "bitcoin.bit") to an IP address. Other use cases include email authentication and potentially more advanced reputation systems. Here is the basic contract to provide a Namecoin-like name registration system on Ethereum_ \[...\]

Interestingly, Vitalik doesn't reference **name → cryptocurrency address** mapping as a possible use case, which suggests that there still wasn't a widespread awareness that this would be a UX issue. Nonetheless, it is interesting that a name service on the Blockchain has been considered for a long time; it just took a long time until a solution was implemented that was technically mature enough to find widespread adoption.
Since Namecoin, there have been several projects that aimed to solve the challenges of name mapping based on Blockchain technology.
In this article, however, I want to focus exclusively on ENS and Unstoppable Domains. These are by far the most popular Blockchain-based naming services that focus on mapping names to cryptocurrency addresses.

### ENS

As the name suggests, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is built on the Ethereum Blockchain. ENS was first proposed by Nick Johnson in Ethereum Improvement Proposal 137 in 2016 and was launched in 2017.
It started with a rather minimal feature set (you could register **.eth** domains and point them at an Ethereum address) but has grown in functionality since then. The features most relevant to this article are:

* You can map a name to any cryptocurrency address, even those that are not Ethereum based. So an ENS name like example.ens can also be mapped to a bitcoin address.
* You can import some traditional domains like .xyz (with the plan to support many more in the future).
  * This opens up the possibility to have your website on example.xyz, but also receive all cryptocurrencies using the same address!
* Domain owners can create subdomains like subexample.example.eth. This allows wallet providers to issue all of their users an ENS domain in the form of a subdomain of their own ENS name, for example user1.wallet.eth

According to their website, ENS is (by far) the most integrated Blockchain naming standard with over 250+ integrations with different Blockchain-based applications. [6](#6)

### Unstoppable Domains

Unstoppable Domains is another Blockchain domain name provider which has a lot of traction. They launched their first domains, most notably **.crypto**, in 2019.
Unstoppable Domains provides a very similar crypto address feature set to ENS. The only difference is that you cannot import traditional domains and an unstoppable domain is a one-time purchase rather than a yearly fee (like ENS).
Unstoppable Domains currently has about 50 integrations with Blockchain based applications.

## Conclusion

Personally, I find it odd that Blockchain-based naming services, which map names to crypto addresses, have not been successfully implemented earlier. Even the people building ARPAnet, one of the Internet’s predecessors, realized that a standardized naming system is vital for the usability of their system. In comparison, it took 6 years after Namecoin was released for a service to launch (ENS) which successfully solved the issue of mapping names to cryptocurrency addresses. Nonetheless, there are now two excellent services which solve the issue of mapping names to cryptocurrency addresses.

The final step to completely solving this UX issue is adoption by both Blockchain applications and users.

### Adoption

<a href="/apps/app-1617284064442-argent-mr9vab4xa/screen/sh7adnu5k"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1630054645/neueux/media/articles/03_example_ens_address.jpg" alt=""></a>

Blockchain application developers have to embrace these services, which means integrating them with their dApps and prioritising them in their interfaces. It isn't enough that your app can resolve ENS or unstoppable domain names in the address field. If a cryptocurrency address has an ENS linked to it, you should display it instead of the cryptocurrency address!

We need to make it the norm to see names in wallet apps instead of monstrous crypto addresses!

> _It’s a small change with a big psychological impact._ — Itamar Lesuisse, Argent CEO, about integrating ENS.

Beyond prioritizing names in interfaces, we need to make it easier and cheaper for users to obtain names. Currently, users have to go out of their way to register a domain and map it to their different cryptocurrency addresses.
Think back to your first steps on the Internet: Imagine you would just have gotten an IP address (ex. **123.456.78.90**)  as an E-Mail-Address. Would you have gone out of your way to get yourself a eaily readable domain name, payed 10$ for it, and set up the correct mapping to the IP address of your E-Mail? For most people, that’s probably a no. So, we also can't expect new users coming to Blockchain to do that.

Ideally, wallet providers would give a free name to all of their users, maybe in the form of a subdomain like **user1.wallet.eth**. At the moment, this seems unrealistic since creating a subdomain on the Blockchain costs a fee, which can be quite high at times. So it would be uneconomical for most wallets to give them away for free.
Luckily ENS seems to be on top of that. They are planning to move subdomain registration to L2. If you are unfamiliar with the technical term "L2" in this case, it basically means that subdomain registration would become so cheap that most wallet providers could give out subdomains for free.

> _Which wallet provider's subdomains will become the Gmail accounts of ENS names?_ — Brantly Millegan, Director of Operations @ENS

***

#### Sources

1:  <a name="1" href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc226">Standartization of host mnemonics, Peggy Karp, 1971</a>

2:  <a name="2" href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/RFC247">Proferred Set of Standard Host Names, Peggy Karp, 1971</a>

3:  <a name="3" href="https://www.namecoin.org/">Namecoin</a>

4:  <a name="4" href="https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/">Ethereum Whitepaper, Vitalik Buterin, 2013</a>

5:  <a name="5" href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-137">Ethereum Improvement Proposal 137, Nick Johnson, 2016</a>

6:  <a name="6" href="https://ens.domains/">ENS Domains</a>

7:  <a name="7" href="https://unstoppabledomains.com/">Unstoppable Domains</a>

Addresses are one of the centerpieces of everything Blockchain. Looking at Blockchain addresses, anyone can see that it is not the most optimal for everyday payments as it is not easy for humans to read or copy.

Addresses

## The Problem

Most people would agree that you have to be able to trust the system that holds a significant amount of your (financial) wealth. Therefore, it’s crucial for the mass adoption of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies, that users coming into the Blockchain ecosystem learn to trust it.
Trust often appears to involve the belief in an explanation of the person or thing we do or do not trust. In this sense, trust and explanation seem to be inherently linked to one another. [1](#1)
In previous articles in this series, we established that cryptocurrency wallets would be one of the first and primary interactions with Blockchain technology for many people.
Considering that trust will be crucial to the adoption of Blockchain, and that wallets are one of the first interactions with the technology, it seems that the burden of educating new users and creating trust falls on wallets.
In my research, I found that many wallets don't provide enough explanation to cultivate trust. When I think back to my first experience with cryptocurrencies and when I created my first wallet, I had to go out of my way to inform myself about the peculiarities of Blockchain. **Why is the transaction fee different every time I make a transaction?**
The absence of such explanations might not prevent users from being able to operate a wallet, or other Blockchain applications. However, it may make them refrain from actually using these applications if they mistrust the technology. **Why is the transaction fee suddenly so high? Am I being scammed?**

> _1.) Do users of intelligent systems want explanations? Why are explanations needed?_
> It appears that explanations should be provided in intelligent systems, despite the low use observed in some situations. This low use may be, at least in part, occasioned by the desire to avoid expending cognitive effort and the Production Paradox. The occasions on which users want explanations are likely to be highly context-specific. These occasions include the need to resolve perceived anomalies, the desire to learn on the user’s part, and a lack of knowledge of the terms or procedures used by the intelligent system. \[...\]*
>
> _2.) Do benefits arise from the use of explanations? What kinds of benefits?_
> Explanation use has been shown to have positive outcomes, better performance, higher user perceptions of the system and in some cases, improved learning.
> [2](#2)

As this paper suggests, it’s especially the peculiarities, the _perceived anomalies_, that users seek explanations for. Blockchain has many of these peculiarities. Most of the perceived anomalies in the context of Blockchain are the differences in interactions on decentralized applications when compared to web applications we know today.
Users will generally expect most interactions to be the same on Blockchain as they are in "traditional" web products and services. If an interaction is perceived as different in Blockchain, they will seek an explanation for the cause of this anomaly.
In the case of transaction fees, users will quickly notice that the fees seem to change every time they make a transaction; they will want to know why that's the case. If no sufficient explanation is provided, they might become skeptical and develop distrust for the technology.

## Peculiarities

In the following section of the article, I will use cryptocurrency transactions as an example to show the type of Blockchain-specific interactions new users might perceive as abnormal and therefore need an explanation. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of all interactions that should be explained. Instead, this should serve as an example of the type of interactions I think need an explanation.

### Transaction fees

One of the biggest "anomalies" of cryptocurrency transactions is the fees. Each transaction fee is determined by how busy the network is and how much the user is willing to pay for the transaction to go through more quickly. People already fully accustomed to cryptocurrencies might think nothing of it, but being able to set your own transaction fee is quite an unusual interaction. Basically, miners can choose which transactions they want to include in the block they will mine — obviously they want the ones where they earn the most, so the transactions which pay the highest transaction fee are given priority.

People who are used to transactions from traditional payment services may be confused by the fluctuating transaction fees because they are only used to no fees, fixed fees ($0.99 per transaction), and percentage fees (10% of transaction). Additionally in many of the biggest Blockchains, fees can be so high (at times) that many transactions are impracticable and not cost-efficient.

### Transaction time

Again, the time a transaction takes to go through depends on the amount of transaction fees the user paid and how busy the network is. So, if a user decides they want to cheap out on the transaction fee while the network is receiving high traffic, it might take (very) long for the transaction to go through. If a user doesn't know that the transaction time is based on both the fee they paid and the current status of the network, they might get confused and frustrated that their simple transaction is taking so long.

### Transactions are public

Many newspapers report on cryptocurrencies as if they are completely anonymous and untraceable, so it might be surprising to users unfamiliar with Blockchain that this is not the case. [3](#3) In fact, most Blockchains are only pseudonymous and transactions are public for anyone to see. 
If someone knows your cryptocurrency address, they can see how much "money" is in your account, as well as every transaction your account has ever been involved in. This might lead to uncomfortable situations if a user thinks that their transactions are private (as they are in traditional payment services) because anyone who knows their address could see all of their potentially compromising transactions.

### Transactions are final

Essentially, transactions on Blockchains are not reversible. When people unintentionally make a transaction to the wrong address using traditional banking services, they can easily contact customer service to reverse the transaction. This is not possible in Blockchain and could be extremely frustrating for users who were not aware that their transactions are irreversible. The only possible way that a transaction could be reversed is if more than 50% of the entire Blockchain network agrees to do so, which would be an extremely rare occurrence.

## Explanations

The following four examples explain situations where inexperienced users could become suspicious of cryptocurrency transactions — suspicion which could easily be fixed by providing explanations. I will show how different wallets incorporate explanations for some of these interactions into their user flow.

### Onboarding

<div class="trust-article-image-block">
  <a href="/apps/app-1617810727431-mew-wallet-p5eypx7wi/screen/ky3vt63fv"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238914/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20316111.jpg" alt=""></a>
  During the MEW app’s onboarding process, users are provided with a rundown of the most important things to be aware of when dealing with cryptocurrencies. In point 2 they warn their users about the finality of cryptocurrency transactions.
</div>

### Part of the process

<div class="trust-article-image-block">
  <a href="/apps/app-1618409563523-zengo-wallet-hejeoxdps/screen/0d0u7hi1y"><img class="article-image-right" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238915/neueux/media/articles/Frame%2020051111.jpg" alt=""></a>
  Zengo informs their users about the finality of cryptocurrency transactions as part of the sending process. Instead of overloading users with information right when they download the app, they make the information available at the time it is most relevant to the user — in the transaction process.
</div>

### Tooltips
<div class="trust-article-image-block">
  <a href="/apps/app-1617789909158-coinbase-wallet-f24t9fewj/screen/ujj3w2drd"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629291979/neueux/media/articles/Frame%202008.jpg" alt=""></a>
  The Coinbase wallet provides information about miner fees in the form of a tooltip. Tooltips are a way of making information available when it is most relevant to a user. However, in this case, the information is only shown once the user seeks out help and clicks on the tooltip.
</div>


### Knowledge base
<div class="trust-article-image-block">
  <a href="/apps/app-1617810727431-mew-wallet-p5eypx7wi/screen/6hemlhyjc"><img class="article-image-right" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238916/neueux/media/articles/Frame%2020061111.jpg" alt=""></a>
  Lastly, information can also be given in the form of a knowledge base; the MEW app uses their education center as a knowledge base.
  The goal of a knowledge base seems to be to fulfill the users' desire to learn rather than to clarify inconsistencies when they come up.
</div>

## Conclusion

If Blockchain is to hold a significant part of many people's wealth in the future, then all its users will have to learn to trust this technology. This trust can be achieved through well crafted explanations. Users trust products and services which they believe to understand (to some degree). Since wallets will be one of the first touch points for many new users, they should contain adequate explanation. These explanations need to focus primarily on the idiosyncrasies of Blockchain, i.e. the interactions that are different from what most people are used to. The interactions that are perceived as different from the norm will be distinct causes of skepticism, and it is precisely this skepticism that must be overcome in order to foster trust.
In this article, I have given examples of the types of interactions that should be explained and how some flagship wallets are currently trying to integrate explanations into their platforms.
**However, the question might arise: How can we raise the overall level of explanations (and their quality) industrywide?**

In my opinion, a collection of open source explanations and illustrations focusing on the peculiarities of Blockchain is the answer. It would empower the designers and developers of wallets and other Blockchain applications to take these explanations and integrate them into their apps. Also, it would remove their need to invest personal resources into creating high quality explanations and illustrations.

At some point, we would like to offer these resources on neueux. By allowing open source contributors to work out which explanations and illustrations would be most useful and are of high quality, we want to make a valuable contribution to the improvement of UX in Blockchain.

***

#### Sources

1: <a name="1" href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9253-3">Explanation and trust: what to tell the user in security and AI?, Wolter Pieters, 2011</a>

2: <a name="2" href="https://doi.org/10.2307/249487">Explanations from Intelligent Systems: Theoretical Foundations and Implications for Practice, Shirley Gregor and Izak Benbasat, 1999</a>

3: <a name="3" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/eu-to-ban-cryptocurrency-anonymity-in-anti-money-laundering-plan-1.4626129">EU to ban cryptocurrency anonymity in anti-money laundering plan, Naomi O’Leary, 2021</a>

To avoid alienating users, Blockchain applications need to explain why interactions are different compared to 'traditional' applications, and which information users need to pay special attention to.

Trust

## Background

Cryptocurrencies greatly differ from traditional payment services. With crypto, your funds exist in a decentralized system rather than being held by a company.
A user can interact with this decentralized system using two different (numerical) keys, a public and a private key. The public key allows you to receive transactions (your address is generated from this public key), while the private key is necessary to send transactions. This system is called asymmetric cryptography and is a vital aspect of all Blockchains.
The private key is used to authorize a transaction. It is the proof that you are the owner of the account. As the name suggests, this private key is supposed to be private; only the user themself should have access to it, so only they can control the funds.
Consequently, the user has full responsibility for their funds. If a user loses their private key, they cannot call anyone to help them recover it. The seed,  an initial random input from which the keys are created, needs to be backed up in order to be recovered. Otherwise, someone who loses their seed won't be able to recover their private key and will lose their funds forever.

This responsibility, the need for backups, and the backup methods themselves are the UX problems I will discuss in this article.

## The Problem

<img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238157/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20317.jpg" alt="">

The self-sovereignty of cryptocurrencies is what attracts many people, so there is no changing the fact that users must take full responsibility for their keys and, consequently, their funds.

Even though people value the self-sovereignty of cryptocurrencies, many underestimate what kind of responsibility it entails. As a result, many people back up their wallet poorly or don't back it up at all. There are many accounts of people losing huge amounts of money because they haven’t properly backed up their wallet. There are studies which suggest that about 20% of bitcoin has been lost forever (irretrievably stuck in wallets). [1](#1), [2](#2)

I think that backing up ones wallet is underestimated because such a high level of self-responsibility is uncommon amongst most services and products. How many traditional web products do you know where you can't recover your account through their customer support?

In addition, many wallets provide terrible UX during the backup process:

* They don't educate their users well enough about their responsibilities when using cryptocurrencies and how important it is for them to  backup their wallet properly!
* Many wallets don't force their users to backup.
  * Even though backing up might be inconvenient at first, there is no worse user experience than losing all your funds!
* Many new users might even need tips on how and where to store their backup. Telling users just to "write these words on a piece of paper and store them in a safe place" wont be enough for many users. What is a safe place?
  * When I created my first wallet, I had to go out of my way and research best practices on where to store a backup.

A good portion of the lost Bitcoin is likely a result of users not being actively aware of the high level of self-responsibility. This is mostly a problem of wallet providers failing to properly guide and inform their users of this responsibility.  As a result, people underestimate the problem and are at risk of losing access to their funds.

## Backup Methods

Let’s say that our users have learned about their responsibility and are aware that they need to backup. Now the inconvenient part begins, the backup process.
A seed (from which the private and public key are generated) usually looks something like this:

`770cf2cc7e97cd6174d3cdd02d346e43ddaa1df00f5b42d4b71bb4dcc806426077665777da53d5f022f76607e72c7361463bc21522444d9512a0d24ebd51b0ab`

You could, of course, back up this seed directly, but it would provide the same issues current crypto addresses have, as discussed in the Address article:

* Due to the length and complexity, it would be easy to make mistakes when writing  down your seed manually.
* It has no clear structure to it, so it would be hard to spot a mistake.
* Making a mistake in the backup process would, of course, be detrimental, since you would be lulling yourself into a false sense of security.

Other backup methods have been devised to improve the backup process’s user experience. In the following section, I will present the most popular method as well as one promising alternative.

### Mnemonic Phrase

<a href="/apps/app-1617810727431-mew-wallet-p5eypx7wi/screen/agy2sot3a"><img class="article-image-right" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238156/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20316.jpg" alt=""></a>

Currently, the most common way of generating and, consequently, backing up a wallet is a so-called "seed phrase" or "mnemonic phrase". The "seed phrase" is usually a group of 12 to 24 words. A mnemonic phrase usually looks something like this:

`stem foam found piano cricket gorilla main you vacant cruel antique rifle`

These words can be used to create the seed and accordingly the private and public keys.
If the device on which your wallet is stored is broken or lost, you can use your seed phrase to restore it on another device. These words are usually written down on a piece of paper (or similar) and stored in a "safe place" (or multiple safe places).
A mnemonic phrase is already better than the raw seed because it solves the previously mentioned issues, but it also comes with some drawbacks. Writing down the potentially 24-word-long phrase manually multiple times, storing it in numerous safe places, and maintaining those (making sure they are not lost or destroyed) is a non-trivial mental effort.
Looking at the statistic that at least 20% of all bitcoins are already lost suggests that many people fail at this stage in the backup process.

Additionally, mnemonic phrases don't prevent theft. Quite the contrary actually, because there are now two attack vectors: the wallet and the papers with the seed phrase written on it.
There are methods to partially circumvent this problem. However, there are still security issues, and increasing security would increase the mental overhead and worsen the UX of backing up even more.

### Social Recovery

<a href="/apps/app-1617284064442-argent-mr9vab4xa/screen/t9naexans"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629238154/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20315.jpg" alt=""></a>

In an effort to provide a better user experience during the backup process and higher security overall, some wallets have adopted a "social recovery" process. With social recovery, users won't have to write down a seed phrase. Instead, users appoint guardians to their wallets.

These guardians can be other devices, friends and family, aswell as third-party providers.

If the wallet is lost, the user can ask the guardians to reinstate the wallet on another device. To do that, guardians just have to sign a transaction, similar to a normal cryptocurrency transfer.

Social recovery already protects against loss very well. However, another step must be taken to prevent theft because the wallet could still be hijacked or stolen, and the thief could easily transfer out all the funds.
Argent, the first and still most popular social recovery wallet, uses spending limits to prevent major losses from theft. With Argent, the user can set a spending limit. Users can freely spend their funds up to the limit, but after reaching the limit, further transactions have to be approved by the guardians.
The UX of social recovery is definitely much better than that of seed phrases. Social recovery provides better protection against loss and theft and it also decreases the mental overhead for users.

But there are still points that users might find inconvenient:

* You still have the mental effort of thinking about backing up  your wallet.
  * You have to think about potential candidates for guardians. Who can you trust to take that role? Might they potentially conspire to take control of your funds? etc.
* Many people don't have anyone else in their social circle who uses cryptocurrencies. Finding guardians might be difficult for them since having a wallet is a requirement to being a guardian.
* It might take a considerable amount of time to recover your wallet. You will have to contact the majority of your guardians and ask them to approve the reinstatement of your wallet or a transaction that exceeds your spending limit.
  * This might be incredibly frustrating if you have to make an important payment, and now you have to wait for your guardians to approve your transaction or reinstatement.
* Due to the transparent nature of Blockchain, if someone knows your address, they can see how many cryptocurrencies you own and your entire transaction history. When you add someone (friends or family) as a guardian, they will know your address.
  * A big part of what makes social recovery wallets so appealing is that friends and family (instead of corporations and other devices) are your "guardians" and can potentially help you recover your wallet. However, many people might be uncomfortable with their social circle knowing about their personal wealth and  transactions.
    * Imagine you would like to buy something that you are embarrassed about and that is over your spending limit. You would have to ask your Guardians if they could approve this embarrassing transaction.

## Conclusion

According to some reports, many people live paycheck to paycheck ex. 54% of people in the USA. [3](#3)
If Blockchain is going to hold a significant portion of the wealth of a large portion of the population in the future, then recovery methods will have to improve. Most of the world's population could not afford to lose a significant portion of their savings. Statistics show that over 20% of bitcoin's supply has already been lost and about 4% of the current supply is lost annually. Statistics like these suggest that it is relatively easy to lose one's cryptocurrencies.

The backup and recovery processes should definitely not be an afterthought in the design process of a wallet. While the backup process might be cumbersome for users I think there is no worse wallet user experience than losing access to all of your funds.

The first step for preventing potential loss is for wallet providers to properly educate their users about their self-responsibility and the importance of backing up.
Mnemonic phrases are obviously better than backing up the raw seed, but they come with several UX and security drawbacks. While social recovery is a big step forward in terms of UX and security, the UX still isn't perfect.
UX designers and developers will have to continue working together to either improve current recovery methods or develop new and better ones. Recovery UX will play a critical role in preparing Blockchain technology to hold the wealth of a majority of  people in the future.

***

#### Sources

1: <a name="1" href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d580747908cdc0001e6792d/t/5e98dde5558a587a09fac0cc/1587076583519/research+note+4.17.pdf">There Will Never Be More Than 14 Million Bitcoins, Cane Island Digital Research, 2020</a>

2: <a name="2" href="https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/bitcoin-market-data-exchanges-trading">60% of Bitcoin is Held Long Term as Digital Gold. What About the Rest?, Chainalysis Insights, 2020</a>

3: <a name="3" href="https://www.pymnts.com/study/paycheck-to-paycheck-consumer-finances-american-households/">Reality Check: Paycheck-to-Paycheck, PYMNTS, 2021</a>

4: <a name="4" href="https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html">Why we need wide adoption of social recovery wallets, Vitalik Buterin, 2021</a>

With the need to do their own backups, users have a high level of responsibility, which is uncommon among other popular apps. The backup process and the responsibility that comes with it are, therefore, a significant inconvenience to users.

Recovery

Right off the bat, I want to state that I am not an accessibility expert. With this article, I simply want to draw attention to a problem that has been hardly discussed in Blockchain — the accessibility of Blockchain applications. Some aspects of blockchain are rather inaccessible, and in this article, I would like to point out the ones that stood out to me.

## Designing for Accessibility

### Intro

In general, the goal when designing for accessibility is to increase the usability of the application for all people, but especially for those with disabilities. In the end, all people should be able to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the application.

Designing for accessibility includes considering all disabilities that may limit ease of interaction with an application:

- Visual
- Motor/mobility
- Auditory
- Seizures
- Learning/cognitive

There are also many situational limitations where accessible applications provide a better user experience to both people with physical or mental disabilities and those without. **Strong sunlight**, **lost optical glasses**, or even a **too-small screen** can lead to visual limitations. Temporary conditions like a **broken arm** or a **broken touchscreen** lead to tactile restrictions. Finally, even something as common as **sleep deprivation** can lead to minor mental impairments.

This means that designing for accessibility not only benefits people with disabilities but also leads to significantly better user experiences for everyone.

### How to Design for Accessibility?

There are many resources that can help you get started with designing (and developing) for accessibility. One which I can highly recommend is the accessibility section of the Material Guidelines from Google. It is a thorough list of the most important things to consider when designing for accessibility. [1](#1)

Right at the beginning, this guide lists 3 pillars according to which one should design for accessibility, namely:

<div class="article-grid"> 
  <div>
    <strong>Clear</strong>
    </br>Help users navigate by designing clear layouts with distinct calls to action.
  </div>
  
  <div>
    <strong>Robust</strong> 
    </br>Design your app to accommodate a variety of users.
  </div>
  
  <div>
    <strong>Specific</strong>
    </br>Support assistive technologies specific to your platform, just as you support the input methods of touch, keyboard, and mouse.
  </div>
</div>

These pillars might still be a bit abstract for many people; therefore I will summarize the most important points of the accessibility guidelines of Google here:

- Make content appear and operate in predictable ways.
- Help users avoid and correct mistakes.
- Have a clear hierarchy of importance.
- Make essential information discernable at a glance.
- Make elements clearly visible.
- Have sufficient contrast and intentional color selection for accessibility (red-green visual impairment etc.).
- Support assistive technology on the platform you are developing on.
    - Alternative text (description of images/illustrations, text for textless buttons etc.)
        - This allows screen readers to read out all elements of the interface.
    - Scalable text and a spacious layout to accommodate users who may have large text, color correction, magnification, or other assistive settings turned on.
    - Keyboard and mouse interfaces can have every task and all hover information available through keyboard-only input.
    - Allow screen readers and other assistive technology devices to read all parts of your interface.

## Issues

Finally, I would like to focus on the accessibility issues of the blockchain ecosystem in particular. As I am not an accessibility expert, I will not catch all of the pain points that people with various disabilities might struggle with. However, I will provide examples of the things I imagine to be essential problems to address.

### Long strings of numbers and letters

<a href="/apps/app-1617789909158-coinbase-wallet-f24t9fewj/screen/7gqf12qgb"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629234014/neueux/media/articles/Frame%20314.jpg" alt=""></a>

The first challenge that could arise is the long letter and number combinations prevalent in blockchain — frequently found in things like transaction hashes and wallet addresses. These could become a problem, especially for people with visual impairments who rely on screen readers. At the moment, the complex addresses still play a significant role in the daily use of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain applications. Using a screen reader turns to verify a transaction recipient’s already complex wallet address into a near-impossible task. As an example, here is Google's Wavenet, one of the most advanced text-to-speech programs, trying to read out a cryptocurrency address.

<audio controls>
  <source src="/article_extra_content/address.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
  Your browser does not support the audio element.
</audio> 

Listening to this audio file, it is obvious that checking a wallet address could be problematic.

Since many wallets forward to third-party block-explorers to check the status and validity of a transaction, users also often come across other long number/letter strings such as transaction hashes.

### Prioritization of QR codes

In an effort to minimize the UX issue of addresses, many wallets seem to prioritize QR codes in their interface. However, this prioritization puts people with visual impairments, who cannot use them, at a clear disadvantage.

### Accessible Hardware wallet

At the moment, there doesn't seem to be a hardware wallet that is accessible to visually impaired people. As a result, people with visual impairments have been prevented from utilizing this more secure option of managing their cryptocurrencies.

### Designing for accessibility has not been a priority

For many flagship wallets and dApps, designing for accessibility doesn't seem to be a priority. From my research, many Blockchain applications don't seem to follow the most basic accessibility rules like contrast, fully supporting assistive technology, etc.

### Security Issues

Assistive technologies such as screen readers could prove to be a security problem. On the one hand, these could be compromised by nefarious parties, and personal information such as the mnemonic phrases (secret access code to crypto wallets) could be stolen. On the other hand, these technologies could share these secrets accidentally.

For example, it is conceivable that the mnemonic phrase is unintentionally read aloud by a screen reader (navigating blockchain apps with assistive technologies often works poorly). If this happens in a public context, users would unintentionally share their secrets with everyone in their vicinity.

## Conclusion

I have a feeling that for many people in blockchain, (financial) inclusion is an important value that drew them to the space. However, we need to extend this inclusion further and make blockchain applications more accessible to people with physical and mental disabilities by designing them to be barrier-free. The aforementioned problems are far from being unsolvable. On the contrary, some of them seem relatively easy to solve and are even aligned with other UX efforts. For example, the use of ENS names instead of addresses would be a big step in the right direction for visually impaired people since an ENS name is much easier for a screen reader to read and less complex for a person to understand than an address.

<audio controls>
  <source src="/article_extra_content/ens.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
  Your browser does not support the audio element.
</audio> 

If these become widespread, QR codes would not have to be prioritized as much. There have already been efforts to create a hardware wallet for visually impaired people, namely the IcyWallet. However, IcyWallet’s development never seemed to pass the MVP stage and at the time of publishing this article, the IcyWallet website and GitHub repository are offline.

Ultimately, what is most important is that software and hardware wallet developers are aware of the accessibility issues (and the security issues that could come with it) and are actively working to address them. As I have mentioned in previous articles, wallets are one of the primary ways people will interact with blockchain, and it’s no different for people with disabilities. Therefore, it is important that both software and hardware wallets are **designed to be accessible for everyone**.

***

#### Sources

1:  <a name="1" href="https://material.io/design/usability/accessibility.html">Accesibility, Material Design</a>

2:  <a name="2" href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/">Accesibility Introduction, Web Accessibility Initiative</a>

3:  <a name="3" href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/accessibility">Accessibility, Interaction Design Foundation</a>

4:  <a name="4" href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/icywallet-offers-a-cold-storage-bitcoin-wallet-for-the-visually-impaired-2017-12-12">IcyWallet Offers a Cold Storage Bitcoin Wallet for the Visually Impaired, Nasdaq, 2017</a> 

For many people financial inclusion is an important value of Blockchain. We need to extend this inclusion further and try to make Blockchain applications more accessible to people with physical and mental disabilities by designing them to be barrier-free.

Accessibility

## Transparency in Blockchain

<img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629989281/neueux/media/articles/etherscan.jpg" alt="">

Many people, when they first discover blockchain, mistakenly assume that blockchain is completely anonymous and transactions are not trackable at all. This misconception probably stems from the current state of news coverage about blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Blockchain make the news most frequently in the context of terrorism and money laundering and is often presented as if it were completely anonymous and untraceable — perfect for anonymous criminal activity. [1](#1)

But, of course, this narrative does not correspond with the truth. With most blockchains and cryptocurrencies, all transaction data is freely accessible, and each transaction can be traced since the creation of the genesis block, i.e. the first block of the blockchain.

Most blockchains are just pseudonymous, rather than anonymous. Pseudonym in this context means that your identity is not linked to your cryptocurrency address (which we will just refer to as an “address”). However, anyone can see all the transactions that a specific address has ever been involved in using tools like block explorers (such as [etherscan.io](http://etherscan.io/) for Ethereum). So, if you want all your (financial) transactions to remain private, you have to be very careful that you never connect your identity to your cryptocurrency address. If this were to happen, anyone could see every transaction you have ever made on the blockchain and how much cryptocurrency you currently own.

## Unintentionally linking your identity to your address

Now, you might think that the solution to this problem is to simply ensure that your address is never associated with your identity. But this is much more tricky than one might think. Even a harmless transaction like paying back a colleague for lunch would make all your transactions visible to him. This means that on most blockchains and with most cryptocurrencies, it is not possible to send tokens to friends, family, and acquaintances with whom you do not want to share your entire transaction history at the same time. However, it doesn't stop there. For example, if you order something from a webshop and pay for it with cryptocurrencies, this webshop might store both your delivery details and your cryptocurrency address. Suppose the data of this webshop is leaked, for whatever reason. In that case, anyone who has access to this leaked data could establish the connection between your identity and address and thus see your entire transaction history. A paper in the Journal of Forensic Research also describes how identity can be inferred from data that is freely available on the blockchain. The method described in this paper led to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, a former operator of the dark web site "Silk Road". [2](#2)

There are many ways to unintentionally link one's identity to one's address. In fact, there are many more ways in which this connection can be (forensically) established, but describing them all here is beyond the scope of this article. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out [3](#3)!

### The issue with linked identities

Problems with varying degrees of severity can arise from the pseudonymous, transparent nature of blockchain if an identity is inadvertently linked to an address. 

* First, it can just be annoying. The colleague you paid back for lunch could see all your transactions and might find some of your financial decisions questionable.
* Of course, the same situation could be very embarrassing. For example, if you bought sex toys with this address and these transactions are evident on the blockchain, the colleague could also see these "embarrassing" purchases.
* Additionally, many more serious situations could also arise. For example, if you live under a regime where specific sexual orientations are persecuted, purchasing certain sex toys or porn could be damning. If, for some reason, this purchase becomes evident through the transactions that are publicly visible on the blockchain, it could be used as a tool to surveil and oppress people.
* Criminals could also exploit the transparent nature of blockchain. For example, if there is a leak where delivery data is linked to cryptocurrency addresses (on an e-commerce site for example), criminals could see which of the leaked addresses owns the most cryptocurrencies. This information, in combination with delivery data, would make it easier to plan targeted theft.

All of these problems are exacerbated by the immutable nature of blockchain. Not only is every transaction viewable, but fundamentally, blockchain is immutable, meaning that once the data about a transaction is on the blockchain, it can never be deleted or changed. As a result, if at any time your identity is linked to your address and you realize that compromising transactions are coming to light, you have absolutely no way to remove them from the blockchain.

## Conclusion

There are multiple UX issues that arise from the transparency of most blockchains. If you are not aware of these problems, it is easy to unintentionally link your identity to your address. This can have potentially devastating consequences. There are, of course, some technical solutions for this. For example, there are blockchains like Monero which are completely private. On Monero, neither the sender nor recipient nor the transaction amount can be determined. For "transparent" blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum, mixer services like Tornado.cash can be used to execute private transactions. Some of these more transparent blockchains are considering implementing so-called zk-SNARKs into their technology stacks to increase privacy. You can see that there are various technical approaches to solving the privacy problem. Now, the question is **how design can contribute to solving this problem**. In my opinion, design can contribute via education (as already discussed in the Trust article). Good design would include a general education about the transparent nature of most blockchains and inform users that, if they care about the privacy of their transactions, they should take care never to link their identity to their addresses. Additionally, good design should inform users what information they are revealing about themselves when they make a transaction—similar to how social media platforms inform you about the level of privacy on your posts.

***

#### Sources
1: <a name="1" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/eu-to-ban-cryptocurrency-anonymity-in-anti-money-laundering-plan-1.4626129">EU to ban cryptocurrency anonymity in anti-money laundering plan, Naomi O’Leary, 2021</a>

2:  <a name="2" href="https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/bitcoin-investigations-evolving-methodologies-and-case-studies-2157-7145-1000420.pdf">Bitcoin Investigations: Evolving Methodologies and Case Studies, Andrew LR and Douglas Orr, 2018</a>

3:  <a name="3" href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8888155">Privacy-Preserving Solutions for Blockchain: Review and Challenges, Jorge Bernal Bernabe, Jose Luis Canovas, Jose L. Hernandez-Ramos, Rafael Torees Moreno, Antonio Skarmeta, 2016</a>

4:  <a name="4" href="https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2019/01/the-privacy-questions-raised-by-blockchain">The Privacy Questions Raised by Blockchain, Bradley.com, 2018</a>

5:  <a name="5" href="https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/01/15/privacy-on-the-blockchain/">Privacy on the Blockchain, Vitalik Buterin, 2016</a>




As seductive as a Blockchain’s other advantages are, neither companies nor individuals are particularly keen on publishing all of their information onto a public database that can be arbitrarily read without any restrictions by one’s own government, foreign governments, family members, coworkers and business competitors.

Privacy

## What is Jargon

Jargon is specific terminology associated with a particular domain. It is essential to describe new entities for which there is no name yet, and it ensures the lingual precision and accuracy required for some domains. Jargon definitely has its place in the world as a means of making communication between experts more efficient and precise. But suppose it is used in the wrong context, for example, in an app intended for end consumers. In that case, it can have a clear negative impact on the communication between the application and the user. When niche words and phrases are used in applications intended for users who are not experts in the domain, these words become meaningless and hold no value. It obfuscates and complicates meaning, which can be irritating and off-putting to users and ultimately detrimental to both the user and the application.

From my research, I can say that pretty much all blockchain applications are full of jargon. While the terms "**airdrop**”, "**oracles**”, "**smart contracts**” and "**gas**" may be second nature to blockchain enthusiasts, they are meaningless and confusing to people taking their first steps into blockchain.

## Why Jargon is bad

> [...] he will be able to speak of it in the easy language, and with the completeness of conviction, with which he talks of any ordinary every-day matter. If he does not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical phraseology which he has got up; and a dead dogmatism, which oppresses, or raises opposition, will take the place of the lively confidence, born of personal conviction [...] - Aldous Huxley on teaching [1](#1)

There are two ways in which jargon can be bad. The first is when it is poorly formed — for example, when it is linguistically incorrect, a misnomer, unnecessarily long, or similar (a more detailed list can be found in [2](#2)). Although jargon in blockchain often falls into this category (i.e., **Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge** or zkSNARK 👀), I will focus on the second type of Jargon in this article: jargon that is ill-adapted to its audience.

This second poor use of jargon is anywhere in an application intended for end-users who are not blockchain experts. Likely, the majority of blockchain users will not understand blockchain jargon when they are first getting started. And if jargon is not understood, it might lead to unwanted outcomes.

Users only have limited mental energy at their disposal. In order to understand jargon that they are not familiar with, they must expend some of that mental energy to hypothesize about the word or look it up. More energy is then used to read and absorb the rest of the sentence, and the remaining mental energy must be used to internalize the sentence’s content and to understand the meaning. That means that the more frequently jargon is used in an app, the more time and attention users must spend absorbing and understanding the information. Time and attention that should instead be spent on what's important at this point —understanding the information you want to convey in your interface.

In summary, jargon forces new users to spend unnecessary mental energy on understanding new, obscure words. Instead **this energy should be used on actually understanding the product** and any information that is necessary for users to be able to use the app successfully.

This extra effort often leads to frustration on the part of users. It can lead to fundamentals being misunderstood and wrong actions being taken. Erroneous action in blockchain is often much more fatal than in traditional web applications, because many actions in blockchain cannot be reversed. In the worst case, jargon could lead users to abandon an app out of frustration and lack of understanding.

Finally, jargon makes an app less accessible because it disadvantages people with cognitive/learning disabilities and people with limited language comprehension.

## Jargon in Blockchain applications

The following screenshots are not meant to criticize the design of the apps. On the contrary, most of the applications shown are very well designed! Some of these apps may have deliberately chosen to use particular jargon, because their app’s target audience is more experienced users. Thus, these screenshots are only meant to be examples of the prevalence of jargon in blockchain applications in general.

<div class="article-grid article-jargon-image-grid">
  <div class="article-grid-span-3">
    <a href="/apps/app-1622214203974-gnosis-safe-elq6rg1tr/screen/qb1o7t1g5"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991540/neueux/media/articles/image10.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-1">
    <a href="/apps/app-1617876781719-lumi-wallet-azynqag3b/screen/od6hqu4e9"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991537/neueux/media/articles/image5.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-1">
    <a href="/apps/app-1617869675070-brd-khnlkeubl/screen/oxfdghcfx"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991536/neueux/media/articles/image4.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-1">
    <a href="/apps/app-1617289773983-atomic-wallet-x3l28b4fg/screen/jfy7wlet0"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991535/neueux/media/articles/image1.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-3">
    <a href="/apps/app-1621349700624-tornado-cash-eyynmsu1t/screen/ulz6yhdau"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991539/neueux/media/articles/image9.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-3">
    <a href="/apps/app-1621347512156-opensea-phg2vice5/screen/2o6zmot5z"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991538/neueux/media/articles/image8.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-1">
    <a href="/apps/app-1618389262827-trust-wallet-v6z58hamj/screen/nfzmo6g7g"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991534/neueux/media/articles/image.jpg" alt=""></a>
  </div>

  <div class="article-grid-span-1">
    <a href="/apps/app-1617810727431-mew-wallet-p5eypx7wi/screen/bj9p9yx33"><img class="article-grid-image" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629991581/neueux/media/articles/image3.png" alt=""></a>
  </div>
</div>

## Conclusion

If blockchain products are to be usable by everyone, at every level of understanding, then applications will have to communicate to users in a way that everyone can quickly and easily understand. They should use jargon sparsely, and communicate in as plain language as possible. Otherwise, as described above, niche phrases will increase users’ mental overhead considerably. I know that it is difficult to determine what is jargon and what is not when you are deeply familiar with a subject. It happens to me all the time. However, as designers (and people interested in design), it's our job to bridge the gap between specialists and end-users. We should take a step back and evaluate if all the information in the text of an application is easy and quick to understand. In the end, an easy to understand application creates the best outcomes for everyone — inside and outside the blockchain domain.

***

#### Sources
1:  <a name="1" href="https://mathcs.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/SciEd.html">Scientific Education: Notes of an After-Dinner Speech, Aldous Huxley, 1869</a>

2:  <a name="2" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2190/J8JJ-4YD0-4R00-G5N0">Scientific Jargon, Good and Bad, Russel Hirst, 2003</a>

Jargon is the specific terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. It is that jargon can have a negative impact on communication between professionals and laypeople. When niche words and phrases are used in applications that are intended for first time users, these unfamiliar words become meaningless jargon that provides no value. It clouds and complicates meaning, which is irritating and alienating to users, with potentially harmful consequences to all parties.

Jargon

One of the first steps you will take when beginning to interact with blockchain is to get cryptocurrencies (possibly even before you create a wallet). Without Cryptocurrencies, you can hardly do anything on the blockchain. Consequently, the process of getting your first cryptocurrency is a critical step in onboarding new users. The UX has to ensure that this initial important step is pleasant and easy for everyone to do. In extension,it's just as important to be able to convert your cryptocurrencies back into fiat currency, because sometimes you need to buy things in everyday life.

That's why in this article, I'll take a closer look at the process of new users receiving their first cryptocurrencies, as well as how they can sell them back for fiat currency.

## Ways to get Crypto

As many already know, there are two main ways to get cryptocurrencies.

### Mining / Staking

Depending on the blockchain’s technical structure, you can recieve a specific cryptocurrency from a particular blockchain by either mining or staking.  Mining and staking mechanisms are how new tokens are brought into circulation. Mining and staking are, of course, rather advanced activities. So, it is not likely that someone will receive their first crypto by mining.

That's why we are now going to look at the second way: buying them.

### Buying

There are several different ways to buy crypto, but the two most relevant to this article are buying on exchanges and buying through ramp services.

#### Exchange

At the moment, most people still buy their first cryptocurrencies on exchanges, despite the fact that exchanges are relatively complex products that require a lot of customer understanding (KYC). Exchanges are relatively complex products because exchanges are predominantly designed as a special tool for people who invest. In my opinion, this is why most people currently purchase their first cryptos on exchanges—because the most common use case for crypto at the moment is investments.
People tolerate these complex interfaces because they are willing to spend some time to learn the tool they are using to invest. However, as more use-cases arise beyond investing, more people who are not willing to invest time learning how to use investing tools, will come into contact with blockchain and crypto.

As a result of the diversity of crypto users, there is another product category for buying cryptocurrencies: ramp services.

#### Ramp Services

Theoretically, an exchange could also be called a ramp service. Since, strictly speaking, the term, ‘ramp service’ only refers to the process of buying cryptocurrencies with fiat money. However,the term is often used for a type of product that greatly simplifies the process of buying crypto.

Typically,  ramp service  interfaces are nowhere near as complex as those of exchanges, and their KYC requirements are usually tiered according to how much a customer wants to purchase. If you want to buy very little, the KYC process is minimal and the whole process will be much easier and faster.

For example, popular ramp services include:

- simplex
- ramp.network
- wyre
- mercuryo

<a href="/apps/app-1618389262827-trust-wallet-v6z58hamj/screen/6xz6er750"><img class="article-image-left" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629993583/neueux/media/articles/onramp_1.jpg" alt=""></a>

Many wallets have provided on-ramp services in their platforms so that users do not have to go out of their way to buy crypto. However, most wallets only redirect to an on-ramp service, which then opens in a new browser window (as for example the Trust Wallet does in the screenshot shown). 

In my opinion, this is not an optimal solution. It is already difficult to build trust for crypto products as many people are inherently skeptical. Being redirected to another website in order to make a purchase, often without an explanation why, undoubtedly deters some people from actually going through with the purchase, because they are not sure if they can trust the website they have been redirected to.

It would be much better if the entire buying process happened in the wallet app, and the transaction with the ramp provider worked in the background, hidden from the user.

With most ramp services, there is a relatively large selection of popular cryptocurrencies that one can purchase. However, not all of them are available, of course. In addition, ramp services support significantly fewer cryptocurrencies when converting back to fiat currencies. When ramp services offer users to sell cryptocurrencies, they often only support bitcoin and ethereum.

For blockchain protocols that are looking to develop use-cases beyond investing, it is important that they make their cryptocurrency simple to buy, i.e., with a ramp service. However, they should also prioritize simple solutions to easily sell this cryptocurrency as well. Without a simple ramp services solution for selling crypto, users will have to go to an exchange to sell. Again, this would run the risk that less technically experienced people would avoid the cryptocurrency altogether. When a currency is too complex for average people to convert into fiat, it becomes worthless in “real world use”, because users can’t easily use it to purchase things they need in “real life”.

## Conclusion

<div class="trust-article-image-block">
  <a href="/apps/app-1618409563523-zengo-wallet-hejeoxdps/screen/a8rsh0mvb"><img class="article-image-right" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629993584/neueux/media/articles/onramp_2.jpg" alt=""></a>

  It is still very common for people to buy their first cryptocurrencies on an exchange. However, one should not expect that all users will be willing to do so in the future, especially as t use-cases outside of investing become more prevalent. Therefore, all blockchain protocols should seek out ramp services to support their cryptocurrency.

  It is great that so many wallets already have onramp services built into their product. However, I think there is still much room for improvement. Wallets should not redirect users to an external website. Instead, they should do everything within their own app (as the ZenGo Wallet does in this example). This change would be a significant step toward a smoother experience for users.
</div>




On-ramp and off-ramp services are a way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with fiat money quickly and easily. They provide an essential service because they significantly lower the barrier to entry for inexperienced users. Without these services, inexperienced users would be overwhelmed with the interfaces and interactions required to buy cryptocurrencies on an exchange.

Your First Crypto

## Introduction

*This is the first, introductory article of the eight-part article series we are launching, about the biggest UX problems we see in Blockchain at the moment.*

We started neueux with the Screen Gallery to have a quick way to see the current design patterns of popular Blockchain applications at a glance. The screen gallery gives you an overview that lets you see not only the good designs, but also where potential UX challenges may lie.

We are launching this article series to create a deeper awareness of the Blockchain industry's UX challenges. We believe it is important to facilitate a deeper understanding of the problems before offering resources to solve them; that's why we are launching this series as the next step for the platform. 

Please keep in mind, that this series is aimed at designers new to Blockchain. So for developers already familiar with Blockchain there will be a lot of redundant information. Furthermore, these articles should be understood as opinion pieces and not as objective scientific articles. Nontheless I invite you to read through the articles if you are interested in furthering your understanding of the UX problems Blockchain products are facing.

This first article will give a brief overview of the problems we want to address in this series of articles.

<a href="/articles/01_addresses">
  <h2>1. Addresses</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/01_addresses"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629205239/neueux/media/articles/header_address.jpg" alt=""></a>

Addresses are one of the centerpieces of everything Blockchain, and they typically look like this: 0x8eD92a86148723A980A408A1De2cFE746b056b24. An address is a user's unique identifier to which other users can send cryptocurrencies. Looking at the above address, anyone can see that it is not the most optimal for everyday payments as it is not easy for humans to read or copy.

In the second article, we will go in-depth into why we think these addresses are a UX issue and how current industry players are trying to solve this UX issue.

<a href="/articles/02_trust">
  <h2>2. Trust</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/02_trust"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629205256/neueux/media/articles/header_trust.jpg" alt=""></a>

Blockchain has fundamental differences from traditional technologies that affect, among other things, how the app interacts with the user and vice versa. To avoid alienating users, Blockchain applications need to explain why interactions are different from other platforms, and which information users need to pay special attention to.

The fourth article will revolve around the current state of educational content in Blockchain apps. Specifically, it will focus on wallets, as they are the first and primary way of interacting with Blockchain technology for most people. We will then give examples of these "special interactions" that need to be explained to newcomers and how developers could better implement educational content in Blockchain applications.

<a href="/articles/03_recovery">
  <h2>3. Recovery</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/03_recovery"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629205276/neueux/media/articles/header_recovery.jpg" alt=""></a>

In crypto, funds exist in a decentralized system rather than being held by a company. Consequently, the user has full responsibility for their funds. If a user loses their wallet, they cannot call anyone to help them recover it - the wallet must be backed up in order to be recovered. Backing up the wallet means (in most cases) writing down a secret recovery phrase that can be up to 24 words long.  With recovery phrases, users have a high level of responsibility, which is uncommon among other popular apps. The backup process and the responsibility that comes with it are, therefore, a significant inconvenience to users.

In the Backup and Recovery article, we will look at why exactly this is so inconvenient to a user. Additionally, we will look at current implementations of the backup and recovery process, as well as a promising alternative.

<a href="/articles/04_accessibility">
  <h2>4. Accessibility</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/04_accessibility"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629470770/neueux/media/articles/Frame%202036.png" alt=""></a>

For many people financial inclusion is an important value of Blockchain. We need to extend this inclusion further and try to make Blockchain applications more accessible to people with physical and mental disabilities by designing them to be barrier-free.

With this article I want to draw attention to a problem that is currently hardly discussed in Blockchain, namely the accessibility of Blockchain applications.

<a href="/articles/05_privacy">
  <h2>5. Privacy</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/05_privacy"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629470767/neueux/media/articles/Frame%202018.png" alt=""></a>

> As seductive as a Blockchain’s other advantages are, neither companies nor individuals are particularly keen on publishing all of their information onto a public database that can be arbitrarily read without any restrictions by one’s own government, foreign governments, family members, coworkers and business competitors. - Vitalik Buterin, 2016

In this article, we will discuss how storing all transactional data publicly might lead to UX issues for some users. Additionally, we will take a look at some privacy-preserving Blockchain solutions out there.

<a href="/articles/06_jargon">
  <h2>6. Jargon</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/06_jargon"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629470775/neueux/media/articles/Frame%202043.png" alt=""></a>

Jargon is the specific terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. It is [well documented](https://doi.org/10.2190%2FJ8JJ-4YD0-4R00-G5N0) that jargon can have a negative impact on communication between professionals and laypeople. When niche words and phrases are used in applications that are intended for first time users, these unfamiliar words become meaningless jargon that provides no value. It clouds and complicates meaning, which is irritating and alienating to users, with potentially harmful consequences to all parties.

We will explain why the use of jargon is a UX issue, how Blockchain jargon is used in different applications, and how common jargon could be phrased differently.

<a href="/articles/07_first-crypto">
  <h2>7. Your First Crypto</h2>
</a>

<a href="/articles/07_first-crypto"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ape-unit/image/upload/v1629470773/neueux/media/articles/Frame%202042.png" alt=""></a>

On-ramp and off-ramp services are a way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with fiat money quickly and easily. They provide an essential service because they significantly lower the barrier to entry for inexperienced users. Without these services, inexperienced users would be overwhelmed with the interfaces and interactions required to buy cryptocurrencies on an exchange.

We will look at popular On- and Off-Ramp services, their processes, and how they implement into other products like wallets.



We are launching this article series to create a deeper awareness of the Blockchain industry's UX challenges. The series is aimed at Designers which are new to Blockchain and developers interested in furthering their understanding of the UX problems Blockchain products are facing.