Coinbase NFT Shop Rebrand
Coinbase is an online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing cryptocurrencies.
The Problem
Scenario:
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I has been hired by Coinbase to conceptualize and design a new NFT product for its users.
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Task:
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Complete wireframes that you think will capture a bold new vision for the crypto platform.
These include initial concept wireframe(s) + to wireframe(s) that showcase your hi-fi redesign.
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In the same file explain your proposal:
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What is the product? How is it better than what is on the market?
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How do your designs fit into the Coinbase brand and experience?
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Why did you make the design choices you did?
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How does this create a more high-impact crypto platform for users?
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
1 week
MAKE OF THE TEAM
Big Team
KEY GOAL
Solve the problem in the best way possible.
My Role
I was the product Designer for this work. My core responsibilities included Conducting research, ideating concepts, wireframing, iterating based on feedback, and delivering final designs.
Final Design Outcome
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Background
In October 2021, Coinbase announced the launch of their NFT shop, a peer-to-peer marketplace that will make minting, purchasing, showcasing, and discovering NFTs easier than ever. Just as they helped millions of people access Bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way, their passion was to do the same for the NFTs.
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Creating an NFT should be as simple as tapping a few buttons. Anything more complicated is a barrier to creativity. Coinbase NFT was proposed to be a peer-to-peer marketplace that empowers the imagination. With an intuitive design built on top of a decentralized marketplace, it was also proposed that the platform will put the art and artist’s experience at the forefront.
What Exactly Happened?
At the time I worked on this project, Coinbase had already launched a beta release of this NFT shop that can be seen here , but in my opinion, I think a lot of work needs to be done as the current platform does not fully communicate the essence of the Coinbase brand and goals, at the same time it does not make much sense to someone who is a novice.
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Now it is important to note that Coinbase mission is to
"increase economic freedom in the world."
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and by enabling more people to join the creator economy and profit from their work, NFTs have an important role to play in this mission.
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Also i wish to point out that the reason why I prepared this paper was to objectively build an improved solution I think should work by matching the companys' business goals with great user experience and at the same time explain the thought process that influence my design decisions.
What the current Platform looks like
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I am not too sure if I understood what the team seek to achieve with this current platform but I think it needs to be improved.
Coinbase has this unique Brand style that is a reference point for every lover of white spacing and minimalistic design and as a key figure in the crypto space I think a lot of work needs to be done on the platform to fully communicate the standard that the Coinbase brand has upheld all this years in reducing the ambiguity that surround cryptocurrencies, a novice for instance might actually not understand how to find their way into the NFT marketspace by that.
​Where do i come in?
Over the years there has been lots of ambiguity that surround the crypto and NFT space which I feel could be solved by subjecting design to a more thoughtful, research and iterative process to gain accurate perspective and insight that positively influence our designs.
Here is what i did.
Adhering strictly to the Coinbase design style, I designed a new NFT Product for their users that would enable them buy, store and sell Digital assets.
This product I designed has an edge over what is currently in the market and this is obviously visible in my presentation of details on the platform. I have decided to reduce ambiguity by designing as though it was a 4 years old boy I was explaining NFT to. The idea here is to make it understandable to users without involving a third party. It was Myles Munroe that said that " when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable" this applies directly to this project, Coinbase's mission is to increase economic freedom in the world, and the implication of this is that an NFT product which is an offshoot from the company should be structured in a way that directly strives towards achieving that goal.
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I tried as much as I could to present the information on the NFT platform in a way that Every single detail there (especially on the homepage) contributes a quota that is geared towards explaining how the entire thing work to users. I used the Coinbase brand color and some fonts similar to the Coinbase Sans font just to make the users feel at home(as though they are still on the same platform) to reduce ambiguity.
Hero Section
Since hero section stands as a user's first glimpse of your company and offering because of its prominent placement towards the top of a webpage I decided to drive every action on that section towards explaining concepts and gaining conversion.
One other thig you'll notice is that the first set of things the user will interface with on the platform is a featured Digital asset section with their bid tag on. The idea here is to entice the users, giving them hints on the extraordinary possibilities of NFT’s. People might be confused on a few things in life but almost everyone understands the language of money and that is why we have a bold price tag on display at the right-hand side.
Users Psychology
"If the digital asset on the left worth up to 10.2 ETH then I need to really get started so I can earn money for myself.”
To be able to receive conversions at this first encounter I decided to add an email ‘Get started’ button at the top for easy registration. Immediately after this section, I felt there was need to strengthen user’s conviction by giving them a hint of how the platform has benefitted people and the total number of people already using Coinbase NFT Store hence the stat section.. This can be see in the image below.
What More?
The NFT space has not been explored that much hence to guide novices, I decided to intoduce an explanatory display of how easy it can be for them to be a part of this fortune.
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Following the Coinbase design style I also added a promotioal content to build more user conviction.
You Can Start Minting NFT's!
NFT pro's might possibly not need to go through that route, so i decided to create room for them by giving them a direct lead to taking a big bite from this cake.
Footer
I pulled up some regular Coinbase footer with reduced content
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
Product Page
I also designed Product page on the platform for logged in users.
Note
I need to point out that I had to switch my grid pattern on the product dashboard page and this is intentional.
Buying and sampling of displayed NFTs on the platform has a strong e-commerce side that shouldn't be taken for granted and from my past experiences, e-commerce platforms will always loose user’s attention span as they scroll down the items card because of too much consistency. What I mean by this is that when a user scrolls through a series of consistent information, they fail to give attention to details of each product on display and this is due to consistency but breaking the flow using a totally different grid system helps reduce that by disrupting the flow.
We have had lot of platforms where users can buy, and sell NFT’s like OpenSea and Rarible, but you'll agree with me that there are lots of ambiguity that surround these platforms. The significance of this NFT product concept for crypto users cannot be overemphasised, at least now NFTs can be understood, bought and sold as easy as ABC.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
Mockups
Here you go.
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