Poof.Cash

Role

Mobile App Design

Website Design

Branding

Design System

Illustrations

Team

1 Founder/Engineer

Timeline

March 2021 - June 2021

Working as the founding designer at a tiny cryptocurrency wallet startup

Context

I was approached by a lead engineer at Rubrik to design for a cryptocurrency hackathon. Together, we worked on his idea poof.cash - a private wallet . After the hackathon, he raised $1M funding and turned the hackathon project into his startup. I was hired as a part-time contractor for 3 months as the lead product designer.

What is Poof.Cash?

Poof.Cash is a private wallet on the Celo ecosystem (Celo is similar to Ethereum). Poof allows users to deposit and withdraw cele without letting people on the blockchain to know. Normally crypto transactions are on-chain transactions and can be tracked which some use to steal funds. However, Poof.Cash hopes to solve this issue.

Initial Hackathon

The hackathon was two weeks long where the founder and I collaborated on the MVP of Poof.Cash. During this stage, there was not much user research done due to the time constraints and the fact that I had no clue what cryptocurrency was. I relied on the founder's knowledge and did a competive analysis of other cryptocurrency products. We presented the basic user flows required and a live development version for the hackathon.

Deposit & Withdraw

The main user flows for a crypto wallet are to deposit and withdraw crypto. I levaraged the competitive analysis and knowledge that I learned to focus on this flow. Since the hackathon was pretty fast paced, the main goal was to simplify the flow so it was more user friendly.

Although we didn't win the hackathon, we were in the Top 10. The founder raised funding and then wanted to expand on his vision for Poof.Cash. I was also eager to learn more since it was new domain space for me to design for and take ownership of.

The Start-Up Begins

How can we design a complete cryptocurrency wallet from scratch?

Design

The first steps we took were to plan out the roadmap of features for Poof.Cash. I created an information architecture diagram to map and categorize the features we were adding. Then I conducted another competitive analysis of cryptocurrency products that aligned with what features we wanted to develop.

I then updated the existing MVP designs and expanded on the additional features. It took a while to explore and identify the best user flows for each of these features. We conducted usability studies with crypto enthusiasts on Discord to refine on the designs.

Key Findings

Users desire transparency and confirmation since crypto transactions cannot be reversed
Users hope for a dark mode version of the app
Users want to have simplified interactions (one-click copy)

Design System

After I considered the findings and finalized my explorations, I focused on developing a cohesive design system. My goals were to consolidate components to be mobile-first and easy for development but also to create a great visual language in the product.

Brand

In addition to the design system itself, we needed to design the company brand. I discussed with the founder and narrowed down his key principles and values for the company. With them in mind, I developed the logo, illustrations, and marketing website.

Values

Magical
Trustworthy
Secure

Final App Designs

With the design improvements, new design system, and branding, I wrapped up the app designs. The new designs include a much simpler interface in addition to user friendly onboarding and navigation. Below shows the improved deposit and withdrawal flow plus some of the other key flows.

To accompany the new product, I worked on the marketing website as well. I designed the page, created the illustrations, and coded the site using NextJS. The intent of having a magical product led me to create the branding elements based on cards with a splash of medieval influence since cards have royalty on them.

Impact

We successfully launched the initial product of Poof.Cash in June 2021. There were rave reviews for the website and product. Total volume of crypto into Poof.Cash was over $1M. However, my contract ended and I did not keep in touch with the project. It is now closed (probably due to the market going down)...but it was a fun and great experience for me.

Reflection

I never thought that I would be a founding designer for any project and it really tested my limits especially since it was a side project. However, I gained a lot of experience and had a lot of fun. Some of my takeways:

Cohesiveness is important in design. Bringing together different elements, features, and even visuals has to be very intentional or else it can make it difficult to use the product.
I need to remember that I am a designer. Since I was so unfamiliar with the domain space, I leaned a lot on the founder even when I thought his direction would lead to bad ux. Luckily the users proved me right, but I should learn to advocate for design in cross-functional teams.
Visual design can be part of a great user experience too. I had a blast working on the branding and marketing sites, thinking about how to draw in users and embed moments of magic into the UI as well.

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