Simplify Trading

Problem Statement

Bittrex was designed for advanced traders to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, based on our research, this type of product is too complicated for retail investors who want Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but don't know how to trade. This leads to high churn rate and an inefficient marketplace making it more difficult for advanced traders to get their orders filled.

Example screenshots of various Bittrex UI components used in the project

Confetti graphics provided by our awesome brand designer

Issues for Retail Investors

"Why are there so many options to buy Bitcoin and so many different prices listed?" 1. Confused about markets These markets are like foreign exchange markets where you can purchase using a variety of different currencies such as USD and EUR in addition to using other crypto currencies.

"The chart looks intense and is intimidating to see all the numbers updating so quickly." 2. Page is overwhelming Currently, the only way to place an order is through the trading terminal which has a lot of analytical tools for traders.

"What do I enter for the price? I just want to buy $100.00 worth of Bitcoin" 3. Order forms too difficult These advanced order types are like auctions. You need to enter the price you are willing to buy or sell for.

"I thought I just bought some Bitcoin. Why don't I see it in my wallet?" 4. Can't find purchases The user only placed a bid similar to an auction. Their order is still on the orderbook waiting for somebody willing to sell for that price.

"Why are there so many options to buy Bitcoin and so many different prices listed?" These markets are like foreign exchange markets where you can purchase using a variety of different currencies such as USD and EUR in addition to using other crypto currencies.

"The chart looks intense and is intimidating to see all the numbers updating so quickly." Currently, the only way to place an order is through the trading terminal which has a lot of analytical tools for traders.

"What do I enter for the price? I just want to buy $100.00 worth of Bitcoin" These advanced order types are like auctions. You need to enter the price you are willing to buy or sell for.

"I thought I just bought some Bitcoin. Why don't I see it in my wallet?" The user only placed a bid similar to an auction. Their order is still on the orderbook waiting for somebody willing to sell for that price.

Screenshot of the current trading terminal to illustrate difficulties for retail traders

First Experiment

I experimented with a simplified purchasing experience to see if we could improve the churn rate. I designed and tested out a stand-alone page using only our existing react components to reduce the impact on our existing trader user base and to be able to deliver in a couple of sprints. The design performed well in usability studies after updating the designs to better highlight the price and fees as those were identified as very important to them.

Try buying some Bitcoin below

Here is the prototype of the design that got implemented. Try buying $500.00 worth of Bitcoin using your linked bank account or debit card.

Initial Outcomes

Unfortunately, the churn rate did not significantly improve, but we did noticed that retail investors are willing to pay 10 times higher commission rate than intermediate/advanced traders.

Next, implement a
Dedicated Experience

We're seeing a significant opportunity in targeting retail investors as their addressable market is much larger, and they are willing to pay a premium for a frictionless experience. The problem is that the current product is obviously built for traders. We want to develop a dedicated experience tailored to their specific needs. We set up more interviews to better understand what's important to them.

Interview Questions

What information do they need before placing an order?
What are the first things they want to look at when opening the app?
Are any of the advanced trading features useful for them?
Should this be a separate product/app?

Key Insights

This is what we learned from interviewing 9 retail investors and 8 advanced traders.

Check on investments 7 of 9 participants wants to check on their investments first upon login "I am a visual person, so it would be great if the first thing I can see is the graph that shows the previous and current value of my portfolio. Also, the current value I am holding in comparison to the dollar amount."

Learn more before buying 9 of 9 participants expects to see project details about the crypto "I wanna understand what the coin does or is used for before investing in it. I usually go to Reddit to see what people are saying about it"

Aspire to
learn trading 9 of 9 wants an easy way to toggle on advanced features as they progress "Good to have an option as one grows into becoming a more expert trader and does not have to go through extra steps to change the layout to a more advanced level of trading."

Advanced trader - differing needs Insights interviewing our existing traders

Look for trading opportunities.
Figure out what orders got filled over night.
Check to see if there are any unused capital.
Looking for promotions such as contests, offers, or IEOs.
Will not use credit cards to buy crypto. The margins are already too small.
Will not use instant buy/sell feature. "Waste of space."
Some mentioned that they don't want to see how their portfolio is doing. "Don't want to trade on emotion."

Design Ideation

I facilitated design workshops with PMs, designers, and researchers to present research and competitive analysis findings and to come up with lots of creative ideas. I further developed the designs some of the ideas to make it more tangible, created user flows, wireframes and high fidelity prototypes, tested them with users, and iterated several times based on insights we gained. I can go deeper into this section during my portfolio presentation of the interview process.

Design workshop photos, mapping solutions from high to low impact on the y-axis and high to low effort on the x-axis. Below has results of the competitive analysis.

Design Iterations
& Usability Studies

Here are some "Instant Widget" designs I explored for the desktop web experience. The challenge was figuring out how to pack so much functionality into a compact area so that we can embed it into several key pages. We tested several of these designs on 18 participants across 3 studies.

Screenshot of 8 design iterations of the instant purchase widget design.

Key Findings (for instant widget)

66% of participants couldn't figure out how to switch between using USD and EUR. Most perceived it as a global setting. I moved the functionality out to their account settings.
Not recommending amounts to enter led to the highest average order size. This was a small sample size based on hypothetical scenarios. We want to A/B test this.
70% failed to purchase a crypto that was available only through the convert tab. Made all assets available through the buy tab and process it as a 2 hop conversion internally.
Test multiple versions of entering quantity or total spend. The last version has highest success. This was the only version that explicitly calls out the action of enter quantity. Went live with this.

Design Solutions

Separate the Basic and Advanced features with a global "mode switcher".
Provide a simple and visual way to see how your investments are doing over time.
Display cryptocurrencies as "Assets" rather than "Markets" (e.g. "Bitcoin" instead of "BTC/USD").
Make the token project details page easier to access.
Let users buy directly from the token project details page and the wallets page.
Make content easier to scan rather than looking like spreadsheets.

Design Comparison Prototypes

New Designs VS Old Designs

Outcomes

We successfully generated a new revenue stream which contributed to 25% of all trading revenue, despite accounting for less than 5% of all trading volume. Each order placed using this simplified experience earned us approximately 10 times more than the commissions we were earning from Intermediate/Advanced Traders. The next steps would be for the marketing team to focus on acquiring more retail investors and for the product team to improve the registration/onboarding conversion funnel. If we can increase the retail trader volume from 5% to just 10%, it would increase the trading revenue percentage of this revenue stream to 50% of all trading revenue.

+5%

By Retail Investors Pie chart showing 5% increase in trading volume by retail investors

Volume

Percentage of trades made by retail investors.

+25%

By Retail Investors Pie chart showing 25% increase in trading revenue by retail investors

Revenue

Percentage of commissions earned from retail investor.

User Feedback

"I just love how visual it is and how compared to other platforms and just sometimes the difficulty of understanding cryptocurrency, it's like really well laid out."

"I think that it's pretty easy. Again, I really truly have only made a few purchases through crypto and I feel like I'm having a very easy time with it."

"Well, to be honest with you, I have dealt with Coinbase. And while that is easy to use as well, I think this one's easier to use than the one I go to all the time."

"Easy, straight forward, gives me the information I need and not more right in my face… without being bombarded by info I don't understand or not yet need."

"I mean, it's making me consider switching from Coinbase because it's easier to read and understand maybe for my trading level."

"Anyone who has used an exchange will know exactly what's going on here… looks like a bank account."

"It's a very easy to use trade interface, that I felt confident using and clear and like, it would be a pleasure to use."

"There was a buying window right here and you just enter the amount of in its everything is very fast and straightforward"

"I think it's very easy. It was very smooth. I found everything quickly the way I needed to."