Adding features within an existing product

OpenSea is the world's first & largest NFT marketplace. New features allow more social & personalised connections between users.

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Team

Personal project (non-commercial)

Scope

UX research, UX/UI design, Usability testing

Tools

Figma, Notion, Google Forms, Maze, Zoom

Prototype

Preview

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About the Project

OpenSea is a peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens. The platform lets users buy and sell NFTs on the secondary marketplace and also create their own NFT collections to sell on the primary marketplace.

OpenSea has a relatively good user experience, however, it could be improved in terms of personalisation of the site and creator discoverability. I was tasked with identifying feature(s) that could be added to fix these issues.
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High-Level Design Goals

Learn about OpenSea's current UX and validate if new features would be the right addition to the platform.
Understand and define product requirements for a successful design solution.
Produce low to high fidelity prototypes and conduct usability testing.

Empathise

On approaching this problem, it was crucial to first gain a better understanding on what users look for in the NFT marketplaces.

This included learning about current user experience with OpenSea (through user interviews + surveys) as well as looking into direct & indirect competitors to see how they solve the problem of site personalisation and creator discoverability.

Here are some key findings about OpenSea's current UX:

Chosen mainly because of its NFT sales volume, not because it’s the best platform.
Desktop version preferred over mobile - many underlying issues with the mobile version that hinder its usability.
“The ease of buying + selling + receiving offers works well."
The platform is interesting but there is a lot of ‘scrolling’ to be done - “finding individual smaller collections is difficult because there are a lot of projects to sift through”.
OpenSea doesn't let users track or follow creators like other platforms do.
Users not too sure how to find new & similar artists - “maybe go to Explore tab or use a different platform”.
Users can get scammed easily because of many fake accounts and poor verification.
Limited cross-blockchain support mentioned as a weakness.
Social aspect appears to be missing.

Overall...

Almost all participants pointed out that OpenSea doesn’t feel very curated and getting around it can be chaotic. Staying up to date + finding new creators & rare NFTs is hard.
Many participants mentioned they would like to interact with other users more directly on the platform. The social aspect was especially important to creators who want to connect with their audience.
Technical issues such as poor account verification or incorrect data feed are very problematic for almost all users.
Desktop version should be the main focus for this project.

Personas

Based on the research findings, I grasped two different personas - the creator and the investor. These personas were crucial to the development of my design decisions, so I made sure to always refer back to their needs.

Define

The next crucial step was defining the product roadmap. I started off by writing down all features that could be added to solve some of the issues validated by my research. This task also made me think how much effort each feature might take and which features should be prioritised.

To ensure that new features would make sense, I mapped out the new information architecture on a site map followed by a couple of quick user flows. This helped me to make sure I'm on the right track before the ideation phase.

Ideate

Following my product roadmap, I began researching most suitable patterns for each feature followed by some low fidelity sketches. The chosen versions were then translated into mid fidelity wireframes.

**Follow & Feed** - enabling users to follow each other and have the latest updates show up in the Feed section. The Feed would also include suggested accounts to follow based on past preferences.

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**Upcoming Collections** - adding a new category to the user profile & sub navigation + allowing users to set a calendar reminder.

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**Comments & Messages** - adding a social aspect to OpenSea for more direct user interaction.

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**Creators & Notifications** - allowing creator discovery + ensuring users can stay up to date with latest activities.

User Feedback

To improve the UX, I decided to create a quick prototype and test the wireframes with at least three participants. The aim was to test the functionality of new features and observe the navigational flow as well as any areas of confusion and difficulty.

I learnt that...

Users were able to navigate around the prototype relatively easily despite its limitations.
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When asked where updates from followed creators would appear, only one user stated it would be in the ‘Feed’. Other users suggested the homepage (after connecting the wallet).
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Finding an upcoming collection seemed to be the most difficult task - users were not sure how to find one at first given the number of indirect paths taken plus some prototype limitations.

Based on the user feedback, I figured that there is an opportunity to make changes also to the OpenSea's homepage. I decided to add Feed and Upcoming Collections sections to the homepage as it's a starting point for all OpenSea's users & this could ease both navigation issues.

Additionally, if the new features would be added to OpenSea, there is a potential to educate users outside of the site via newsletters, socials or even simply via a blog post. There's always a wider ecosystem of UX to think about.

View the original prototype

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