The blockchain and crypto space is full of products that are meant to bring about a more efficient financial landscape. As ShapeShift has evolved, our product team has worked to create the best possible environment to aid our users in pioneering their alternative financial future.
Leading up to the launch of our new platform in July, our product team focused on differentiating the new ShapeShift Platform by fine-tuning the user experience.
We learned a lot in the process — here are some of our takeaways.
#1 Start with Empathy
Look at data points and user testing before you build. If your creative vision doesn’t align with the data, rethink your idea. Look at how users are interacting with your systems, so you can better understand their needs. This will allow you to create products that live up to the standards of your users. Injecting empathy into the start of your design process and allowing it to guide you, will help you to create products that delight and inspire those around you.
#2 Create Custom Illustrations
As you may have noticed, ShapeShift’s brand has undergone a huge transformation. We‘ve stayed ahead of design trends by featuring custom illustrations on our homepage and in our new platform.
“Moving forward,” “Pioneer,” and “Guiding light,” are some of the themes that we want to achieve in our illustrations. Our artwork is reminiscent of the American West, with hopes to inspire others to join us in pioneering a new financial frontier.
#3 Focus on Design Systems
Through this process, we came to recognize the importance of building a design system. A design system means that we’re creating reusable components, allowing our team to plug and play with existing assets, rather than starting each design request from scratch.
This system can encompass everything from buttons, fonts, shapes, icons, motions and more. Want to learn more about design systems? Check out Design Better’s intro to design systems.
A Better ShapeShift Experience
Our design and UX is a critical component; making it easier for clients to try out and adopt our new platform. At ShapeShift, we’re providing next-level tools for crypto management and we want to make it easy for you to try out our new platform.
Connect your KeepKey or Trezor and get started right away. Track, send, receive, and hodl — no account required. A verified ShapeShift account is only needed to buy or trade crypto.
If you have more questions on creating a product with better design — leave a comment or tweet at us @ShapeShift_io.