Cyqur is a product from Binarii Labs that protects customer’s passwords, crypto wallet seed phrases and other sensitive information.
I was thrilled to join this project as a UX team leader, map the team’s workflow and, together, go through all the stages of product development — from clear definition of the Unique Selling Points to the product launch.
This is what I always start my work on a project with. The particular Unique Selling Points, what exactly distinguishes the product from others — this is something that needs to be clearly defined and shared across with the whole team.
For Cyqur, I ran a series of workshops where the team and stakeholders were talking about that true product uniqueness and how to express it to users.
I suggested that we write down all the stages of security user’s data is going through with Cyqur technology, and define the point of uniqueness on every of them.
Thus, we came up with this scheme:
1. Encryption stage
User inputs their data, and they can feel absolutely safe doing it, as Cyqur doesn’t store anything in its backend. User can even do it offline. The data immediately get encrypted, and the proof of record gets written in Blockchain.
2. Fragmentation stage
Encrypted data immediately after that gets fragmented — split into multiple pieces — to enhance the security even more. The fragments then form three incomplete packages (still not stored by Cyqur), and for user to restore their secret from them, they need at least two packets.
3. Clouds Distribution stage
What gives people full control over their data is that it’s just them who chooses where to store it. Cyqur suggests storing the packets in three different cloud locations. If a hacker somehow gets access to one cloud, the secret will still be safe, as the user will be able to restore it with two other packets.
Based on the defined USPs, I suggested calling Cyqur’s approach revolutionary.
In the 21st century, still, the most secure way to store user’s crypto wallet seed phrase is to write it on paper and keep it in three different physical locations. Cyqur instead gives them full control over thier data, keeps it ultra secure, and they don’t need to use the annoying paper anymore.
That was how, with the Cyqur team, we defined the true brand uniqueness, and it stayed captured in website and product copies.
Having nicely defined USPs, the UX team and myself went into studying competitors: we wanted to see how they express their brand uniqueness on their websites and inside the products.
First of all, we established the criteria for comparison:
Emphasising of USPs
[How clear it is what their USPs are]
Navigation
[How clear it is to navigate through the website. Does user understand where the next click will bring them?]
Page Structure
[Which blocks do they split their pages into?]
Actions they want User to make
[Are they doing a presale and want user to join a Wait List, the same as Cyqur back then?]
Visual Tone and Manner
[Any visual assets that are important to take into account - as an inspiration or for us to avoid the effect they cause: colours, animations, typography, micro interactions etc.]
Flaws 👎
Strengths💪
Then, we started studying the competitors based on the chosen template.
After the study was done, I summarised the findings and ran a presentation for the team and stakeholders: what we learned from the competitive analysis, which aspects can be our sources of inspiration and what, on the contrary, we should avoid for Cyqur.
*Slides from the presentation👆
The team admitted the research we did was very deep and useful, and particularly my work was analytical and fast. I’m specifically good at summaries and defining the lessons we can learn from them.
I am a big advocate for User Personas, as the target audience of a product is never homogeneous. Used Personas allow the team to see the product from the perspective of different user groups. They might have different problems, but the solution to them can still be the product we’re developing.
Another good reason to have User Personas is that the team will be choosing users for testing based on the list of Personas. The more designers interact with real people, the clearer it becomes who their customers are, and, in time, Personas might evolve a bit to suit the portrait of real target users better.
In the case with Cyqur, we understood that the real revolution we were bringing to the market was in the crypto and Web3 worlds. We ran a secondary research, and came up to a conclusion that the categories of people who would be interested in the product would be:
*I made a couple of videos about Personas for my Instagram blog. This is the first one, and this is the second one.
1. Crypto wallet owners🚀
...who hold big assets in crypto and care about premium level of security
2. NFT artists and...🎨
...Web3 enthusiasts curious about new technologies
3. Tech-savvy gamers🎮
...and/or developers
I created the template for Personas, and the UX team filled it out. This stage of our work, again, was finished with the Personas presentation I created.
The objective of it was to share the understanding of Cyqur target users groups with the rest of the team. I also highlighted how Personas' definition changed our approach and why exactly they were needed.
Some conclusions and recommendations weren’t related to the website or a product directly, but....
...they were helpful and crucial to convey product’s value to users:
1. We needed to raise global awareness of cyber threats and how people had to protect their data;
2. In the content we post, we needed to be informative, engaging and a bit fun — we needed to edutain our target audience;
3. We needed to focus on building a strong community, as that would be something our users would expect from a new Web3 product.
And of course, the Personas improved our understanding of the future visual look of the product, and having them, we better understood which experience our users would expect to get from Cyqur.
Building a wireframe, my main focus was on the following:
Making sure the USPs are visible and accessible straightaway;
We explain the current state of the crypto world and the threats it contains, so there’s really a need of a good care over your data;
We guide user through all the stages of data protection the product provides, to express the transparency and to show how well-protected the product makes their sensitive information.
When creating the wireframe I ran several brainstorm sessions with the product team, to make sure everyone is comfortable with the chosen structure and that we make the uniqueness of the product super clear.
We definitely wanted our website to look very Web3, so our mood board was filled with cyber security aesthetics.
We wanted to use animated 3D elements, and a UX designer from my team, Damilola Ogunmoroti, built this awesome shape that represented a packet with the user's secret. It became one of the visual symbols of Cyqur.
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As for the threats the crypto world contains, my idea was to represent them with a pirate's hook. And as for the level of security some password managers provide to “protect” users from the threats, I suggested that we use a sieve, as a symbol of something that lets many dangerous aspects in.
As for the USPs, Damilola nicely represented them in the animations.
✨ My Team Management Philosophy:
We needed to According to the way I split responsibilities in the UX team, Cyqur became Damilola’s project. The company had several products in the sandbox, Cyqur was just the first one they were releasing, so there would be enough projects for each designer to take ownership over a separate one.raise global awareness of cyber threats and how people had to protect their data;
Of course, myself, as a team lead, would always be there to support my team members, but I think it’s crucial for designers to have their ‘kitchen’ where they would be main ‘cooks’, if their level of expertise already allows that. I will always be nearby, making sure everything is accessible, consistent and validated via user testing, but I won’t be micromanaging the people in my team.
If I lead them, or especially if I lead them, I respect them as experts, trust them, believe in them and say they’re great professionals. It always pays off. You treat people like professionals, they get more and more confident and master in the solutions they provide.
6.1. Mapping Personas’ User Journeys
Having Personas developed and the secondary research done, we can assume in which context our target audience will be using our product.
The User Journey framework allows us to dive deep into this context. For example, in the case with Cyqur, I assumed that Persona Jasmin, NFT artist, can be creating a new crypto wallet, and while doing that, she wants to use a reliable tool to store her seed phrase. She is inputting her seed words when creating the wallet, opens Cyqur browser extension (browser extension was the first form of the product), and securely stores them there.
Everything that is happening inside the product is Jasmin’s User Flow on a seed phrase storage.
We did the same for each Persona mapping both User Journey in general, identifying the context of product usage, and the particular User Flow inside Cyqur. We put on Personas’ hats thinking about how exactly it will be intuitive for them to use the extension, highlighting possible weak parts of the flow.
For instance, user would need to connect three clouds to Cyqur system, and that process might annoy them, so we need to do our best to make that step smooth and painless.
6.2. Wireframing the product
Based on the preferred Personas’ User Flows we built the wireframe of the future browser extension. It was a true team work of three designers: myself and two other designers in my team. We brainstormed a lot and got a real pleasure from that work.
The deadline we had was quite tough, but we worked as one mechanism, and, looking ahead, delivered everything on time.
6.3. Usability Testing of the Wireframe
I always try to integrate the best UX design practices into the team’s workflow, even if we’re quite limited with time.
Assumptions we make (especially Leap-of-Faith ones we’re the least sure about) should always be validated via user testing, and I know how to squeeze that research into the process. I did it with Cyqur too.
The UX team put together a clickable prototype of the wireframe, we recruited 5 different people that suited our Personas’ description and ran a series of usability tests.
The three of us moderated the sessions in turn, and again — we got a great pleasure from that work together (which was reflected in the Retrospective session we ran after the final mockups were transferred to developers).
To be more certain, we combined usability tests with short user interviews that allowed us to understand the context of our target users’ lives even better.
As for the analysis, I created a FigJam template that helped us organise questions, answers, screenshots, summarise interesting observations and pain points.
After we finished analysing individual sessions, I organised a meeting when we sat together and did the Affinity Mapping. After identifying common trends in our users’ reactions, we listed the changes we needed to apply to our User Flows for people to avoid any kind of confusion.
I really appreciate this workflow, and I feel proud of myself, as I managed to organise it: we made assumptions, we validated them as early as possible, we improved the flow based on the findings.
6.4 UI design of the product
Final stage of the design team, before Front-End developers started their work, was, of course, the UI design of the product.
We needed to work super fast, and I’m very grateful to the team for being that dedicated, focused and professional.
The final mockups the developers received from us were nicely organised, being made of Figma components, as much as possible, and having a consistent grid system.
6.5. Post-launch User Testing
In the ideal world, we could test immediately after the UI was done, again, using a clickable Figma prototype, although we didn’t have the team’s capacity for that. Instead, before finishing my role in this lovely project, I scheduled another round of the Usability Testing for the post-launch time. It should be very fun and insightful for the people who will be doing it!
Cyqur was a truly unique and a super insightful experience for me, as I was managing the product design from start to finish. My biggest insight is: you always (maybe nearly always, OK) can find time for user testing, the question is how much you want it. I normally want it a lot, as I’m used to fighting for the best possible quality of my work.
I was absolutely happy and grateful leading the amazing Cyqur UX team, and I wish them and everyone related to this product best of luck in their future endeavours.
