Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin ecosystem today is far from friendly. There are tons of scammers everywhere, one can mistype an address and lose money, put a wrong GAS amount and lose money, forget private key and lose all money.
What we as pioneers should focus on is user experience: new people should feel more friendly when start using Bitcoin. The interface of the apps should be more intuitive and less scary. We should create an ecosystem with a strong scam defense.

Newcomers got used to smooth experience working with bank apps, they feel secure talking to their accountants and support managers. What my non-tech-savvy relatives feel when they start working with Bitcoins is "WTF?".

Without a UX breakthrough, Bitcoin will remain a toy for geeks, not a product for masses.

I can definitely see your point here, and I definitely agree. The thing is not a lot of developers know design principles such as UX. Besides that , there isn't a central authority telling us how we should create better UX. (Think Google for the Play Store) I think with time and more people educating others on the topic we will start to see apps with better UX and people more inclined to use apps from the crypto space.

Mistype an address?There is a copy-paste function in every computer.Do you write your bitcoin addresses character by character?If yes,i`m pretty sure that you will type the wrong address.People just copy paste the bitcoin addresses.
Forget private key?You should have to write down your private key and keep it somewhere safe.Is this so difficult?
"Scammers are everywhere".That`s why i don`t trade with people without any big positive feedback from other traders.
I don`t have any problems with  the bitcoin user experience.All the newbies whould learn.

As much as I agree that user experience should be improved, what exactly do you think we could do?


Can this even be classified under UX? I don't see ways to revolutionize the business process that could stop users from scamming other users. Most scams fall under social engineering after all.


This can be frustrating when it happens to you, but I don't see any way to bypass it. We have QR codes for this purpose, but they're not always applicable. There's also no way to verify if the user is sending coins to the address he means to.


This one is especially challenging: How do you make the private key more accessible without compromising security?

I'm not writing this to slight you, it's just that as things stand, I don't see a way to improve anything as far as your points go. As for the complexity of the UX, it just seems complex because of the number of steps you have to take. Individually, the steps are rather trivial in nature. I see how it can appear daunting to some people though, since we live in times where everything is just a click away.

YES. You would be surprised to understand how long the common denominator is. if you saw some of the support tickets that people sent in, you would laugh, and wonder how they even discovered cryptos in the first place ;D

its not so much that its hard, then the fact that if you mess up, you can lose significant value permanently. the level of technical sophistication breeds opportunities for folks to fuck up; Facebook is popular because it take all of 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with it to the point of using the majority of its functions. I have been using cryptos generally for years now, there is plenty of stuff I understand but dimly, I have made many, many transactions.

Dude has a point. Bitcoin kinda feels like DOS atm.

I fully agree with the topic discussed here and I also think that developers should think more about the design and functionality of the applications they create in the field of using crypto currency so that an ordinary user who does not have special knowledge could easily and, most importantly, unerringly manage and dispose of his crypto currency.

honestly, I'd encountered challenges explaining things to non techie people about how to do a simple transactions by tapping or clicking here and there, where are wallets and everything, I guess by the time goes by some developers may create an app like wallet for dummies :-)

Hi, Ch1bi, thanks for the reply. A nice point to start learning software UX is this book: https://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140 (https://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140).
But I'm talking not only about apps. The ecosystem is much wider.
Each of the steps between buying BTC to storing BTC is full of pain and no normal guy will want to suffer it ;)

The majority of these issues can't be worked on without some form of centralization.
It's up to the user not being stupid to secure his funds. That's why Bitcoin is trustless, you don't trust anyone to keep your money safe because you are responsible for it.

It is the same thing in banking in some way, being careless in your bank account or in ATM card can brought a huge loss in your money, the principle of do not trust all people specially strangers can also be applied, both bitcoin and money on the bank can be stole if you are negligent to the security of your own money, it's up to the owner how will he able to manage, practice and protect their own assets.

That's why newbies should learn about how it works. You need to study bitcoin before you use this technology. It can lead you to losses or even scammed by others. But if you learn how to use it, you are fine. We been through that before. I dont know thing about bitcoin before. But i really want to learn, so i study and understand it. It is not that hard as you think. If scam it what you are worrying about. Yes we're aware of that. We can be scammed.  But come to think of it, even on fiat we experience scams also. People like bitcoin especially those who don't trust banks. It's also a form of investment which generates fast income. That's why you can't blame others from buying and using it.

How can one mistype an address, seriously? Though I do believe that some coins are being lost in the void because of this, the chances are small since the software that you'll use to send money wouls have posted incorrect address after all. UX id okay, and I'm sure non-tech savvy people would take a hang of it. Also, computers aren't being used widely by people during the 1990s, but look at where we are right now.

Hi, Davis!  ;)
Glad to hear you feel comfortable in the ecosystem. But it's naive to just say "newbies will learn". They should not suffer. If you want Bitcoin community to grow even faster, you should take the mission of making this world more friendlier. Much more friendlier I'd say.

Yup, BTC, crypto altcoins, trading sites including this forum are not so userfriendly, so plain and no cus. One more thing about this forx. There must be centralized registrations of bounties in the bounty category.

People who are total noobs and can't learn how to use crypto or PC in general would have to rely on third party services to hold Bitcoin and process for them - of course this kinda defeats the whole purpose of Bitcoin,  but some people are seriously scared of computers, especially those from older generations. Maybe it would be for the best if they would use a trusted third party, because malware is a serious treat to Bitcoin, so you not only have to manage your wallet and client, but also know a lot about security to not fall for a phishing attack or not download some malware. I just hope that in the future wallet software will be much more secure so people could hold BTC on their computers to actually use it, instead of holding it on paper or hardware wallets.

Greetings, jseverson. What you say are good questions. I don't have the answers right now. But I encourage the community to start seeking the answers together. I want founders to pay attention to the details when they create apps, try to look at their products from a perspective of a newbie. I think it's one of the most important things that keep the Bitcoin grow.
By the way, the one who will be able to create a bridge between geeky Bitcoins and regular people will become the king of the Earth  :D

Well yes. Scammers are a part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. And thieves make the experience using cryptocurrency worse.
I've got a suggestion how to fight them: wallets can create a blacklist of scam address that is populated by a crowd and alert users when they want to send money to that blacklisted addresses.
 

I suppose I wouldn't be against that, but with anyone being capable of creating pretty much any number of wallets they want with very little effort, I just don't see it making a significant difference, if it actually makes a difference at all.

It's just hitting me right now that there's precious little you can do to make improvements client side. To be completely fair, though, as far as the steps go, online banking is not much different. You make sure you have the correct account number (which you'll likely copy and paste), and you make sure you have the amount right. The bank will provide support if you mess up, I know, but maybe the technologically challenged people can look at it from this perspective?

WOW!  Let me guess, you are a software engineer?

As a software engineer who has help others to understand public/private key pair encryption, I will tell you 90 percent of the population has no way of understanding what bitcoin is all about.    As was stated, geeks will eat this stuff up.   As for cut and paste, I find everything about smart phones to be stupid and the cut and paste implementation is as bad as Morse code.  Bitcoin in the hands of people who do not understand the concepts of encryption, digital signatures, linked lists, blockchains, network transport protocols is like investing with Bernnie Madoff.   “TRUST US”  They will be putting their funds into something they do not understand and that is anything but investing.   

Bitcoin for non-technical people is a bad idea at the current point in it’s evolution.   A ton of work still needs to be done for it to be a currency for the masses.  At this point it's not currency at all.

Yes we should work on user interface. I think that is a big barrier that is stopping more people from getting involved in cryptocurrencies is that is it too hard for them to do so.

Blockchain.info makes easy to start with Bitcoin. I started using blockchain.info without having any idea about how bitcoin works

Yeahhh nothing beats the simplicity, functionality, and beautiful design of blockchain.info!

I agree, entering Bitcoin world is not advised for the faint of heart, you need certain amount of knowledge before you even start.

Scammers will be there always - as for other instances of fucking yourself up, unfortunately, bitcoin is not idiot-friendly, it doesn't forgives mistakes.
I can sympathize with your idea, but some things simply can't be changed easily, for example, the way bitcoin network works.
Bitcoin transaction will be always irreversible (at least in the foreseeable future) and that is a perfect ground for every possible scam.
What can be done to made wallets less scary? After all they are pretty easy to use - once you know basic principles of BTC.

Well it's user friendly and not complex which is a great virtue but I think with consistent security improvements it will remain the best of all Bitcoin wallets for a long time.

The software industry is 60 years old but UX is still inexcusably underestimated  :D