How do we solve the UX problem in Crypto wallets?

[deepskydiver]

You are absolutely right despite too many here pretending it's simple.

It's not. It's not like opening a bank account which is something most people understand.

Wallets like electrum ARE intimidating to newbies. Hell even the seed phrase isn't portable. And in any wallet what is a change address!? There's nothing intuitive about these things we all understand.

The best way to do it is to keep it simple. Just the seed phrase: but then as soon as you need to send coin someone gives you an address - not a phrase. So what's an address and why is there more than one? Similarly you need to give an address to receive coin. And you get a different one each time you ask.. Huh?

Then people are told to have a Watch Only wallet. But it doesn't have a seed phrase. It has an xpub generated from your seed phrase. Well WTF is that!?

So yes. Houston we have a problem with usability which makes it unintuitive and in many cases beyond what some people want to try to understand. Solving these will increase adoption.

[passwordnow]

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

The features that these wallets have are more than enough for average and newbie users. What makes it intimidating is the experience of each newbie which is normal for first time users. Let alone keep on using the wallet and everything will be easy and the user will be used to it.

Yep. Some just don't want to read a guide or two to reach their target - they want answers there and now, or else. That's why sometimes the experience can be a bit frustrating for a newbie.

I know that everyone isn't techy at all with stuff. But if someone has an android phone and has an access to their bank accounts. That can connect the dots and they'll surely understand what they are up to. With that, they only have to be familiarized with the basics and understand on how to keep their wallet's private keys.

[Jating]

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

I'm not really sure what is intimidating about wallets like Electrum, which is open source and minimalist, all you need is already there, instructions are clear and they have documents that you can go through if you have questions or doubt.

So for me, I do not see what kind features we still need to be seen. For private keys or mnemonic phrase, get it, write it down and make a back up, simply as that. And I think that's what wallets want, not to complicate things for newbies as everything is laid for us, we just need to understand it.

QR is also available which makes very easy and flexible to use to newbies.

[headingnorth]

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

[hero_the_bossman]

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

That's why they need to push the decision to make their UI a more user-friendly experience, in my opinion.
Or maybe that's a trick to put all that wouldn't pay some time to learning the wallet out of the picture 

[freedomgo]

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

The easiest bitcoin wallet I’ve used is Electrum Wallet, and I think most posters here would agree with me. It’s pretty straightforward and easy to monitor since it’s exclusively for Bitcoin. I believe it’s not complicated if we take the time to research. Interest matters, and if we’re thinking of investing, we should start by setting up and securing our wallet. This helps minimize risks, you know, you can’t afford to be ignorant in crypto, as there are plenty of scammers out there. We must stay vigilant and not fall for their tricks.

By the way, beware of fake Electrum wallets. Always download the wallet directly from their official website to avoid issues when creating or updating your wallet.

[Maslate]

By the way, beware of fake Electrum wallets. Always download the wallet directly from their official website to avoid issues when creating or updating your wallet.

I’ve been a victim of this in the past and won’t make the same mistake again (for sure).
It was an experience I’ll never forget, but others still have the chance to avoid falling for this kind of phishing scam if they learn from the experiences of others.

All I can say to OP is that he needs to take his search seriously. Asking basic questions only shows he hasn’t put enough effort into researching (no offense to OP).

[Potato Chips]

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

That's an interesting take, I must say. I remember when I was relatively new, I have considered electrum as beginner friendly and through out the years, have consistently seen bitcoiners recommending electrum as beginner friendly. I've seen similar pattern with electrum forks for altcoins like LTC, as well.

This brings me to an idea that beginners can be classified into different categories as well as some may be able to pick up stuff faster than the other beginners, for instance. Though, I'm not sure there will be a one size fits all solution that would cater to everyone without sacrificing good amount of security 🤔

[headingnorth]

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

That's an interesting take, I must say. I remember when I was relatively new, I have considered electrum as beginner friendly and through out the years, have consistently seen bitcoiners recommending electrum as beginner friendly. I've seen similar pattern with electrum forks for altcoins like LTC, as well.

This brings me to an idea that beginners can be classified into different categories as well as some may be able to pick up stuff faster than the other beginners, for instance. Though, I'm not sure there will be a one size fits all solution that would cater to everyone without sacrificing good amount of security 🤔

The Electrum interface is extremely basic and bare-bones, almost DOS-like in appearance.
Unless they are comfortable working with a DOS, FTP or Linux type interface that alone is very off-putting to most newbies and non-tech people.

[ranochigo]

Bitcoin wallets are usually pretty dummy-friendly. Bitcoin Core is fairly easy to navigate around, and also to understand. Electrum is even easier to use for someone who has basic knowledge on how to click a few buttons. UX or UI are really not the focus of these apps because they're supposed to just do their job well and nothing more.

UI/UX for most banking apps, or transfer apps are mostly focused on their mobile applications, where its a lot more important given the demographics. They're fine in most regards, and I suspect OP is complaining about the terminology of Bitcoin rather than the application's user experience. I'm inclined to think that the problem stems from their unwillingness to understand how Bitcoin works.

[Darker45]

I guess things would go smoothly if you're starting from the very basic while slowly proceeding to the next. Explanations will do. You don't have to actually review codes of open-source wallets, for example. If the transition isn't premature and the learning process is one small step after another, I guess there won't be unnecessary steep curves.

For newcomers, I guess the starting point is to learn to backup, send, and receive. The rest like wallet recovery, choosing the right fee, signing or verifying a message, coin management, consolidating UTXOs, and so on will follow later on.

I think crypto wallets are doing their thing properly. As a matter of fact, merely classifying transactions as slow, fast, or whatever is too newbie-friendly. Users should be able to determine the specific fee they wish to pay.

[pooya87]

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

~

The Electrum interface is extremely basic and bare-bones, almost DOS-like in appearance.
Unless they are comfortable working with a DOS, FTP or Linux type interface that alone is very off-putting to most newbies and non-tech people.

I agree that the looks can be improved and made to be more "modern looking" but still that is not really a criteria that decides if a wallet is "newbie friendly" or not, what you explained is all about cosmetics.

Being newbie friendly is about how easy it is to use the wallet like:
- easy to create, backup and restore a wallet
- easy to send/receive coins
- easy to set and modify the fee
- easy to perform coin control
- easy to setup a cold storage
- and more.
Electrum checks all the boxes.

[Huppercase]

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

Unless you choose to use complicated wallets, there are wide variety of opens source wallet that you can use which have a simple UI and very easy to understand with very fast sync functions so you don't have to wait before making a transaction. Examples are Electrum wallet, Blue wallet, Bitcoin core wallet and this wallet has available downloads for mobile device and also for your personal computer, you can also use Electrum for cold wallet if you do wish.

The problem now with some most of these developers is they are trying to make wallets to be fancy so they can attract users and get more downloads but wallets doesn't even need some of the things they integrate. You will see a wallet with Dapps, browser, and complex settings. You don't need all of this unless you are using altcoins which is understandable due to the use of decentralized finance but as for Bitcoin, they are not necessary.

[Cricktor]

Do we really need something so dumbed-down and polished to spoon feed crypto newbies so that they don't need to learn a thing how a wallet, a transaction, Bitcoin works? C'mon, give me a break...

I have the feeling the request for ultra easy wallets is an excuse to avoid having to learn about the crypto stuff you're "playing" with. Why exercise your brain muscle, totally overrated!?  

What kind of attitude have newbies? Get rich quick, without understanding and effort? Usually doesn't work that way.


Addressing it from another perspective. I get it, that newbies prefer it to be easy, less challenging. In many cases this also means, less control. If you don't want or need more control, fine. If you become more experienced, a lack of control and advanced options is bad and frustrating.

And you shouldn't forget: it's not easy to program a wallet to offer and please all. The newbies with "toddler mode", the advanced users with full fledged all-you-can-dream-of options and control, all shiny and polished but still super functional.

Most if not all open-source wallets are for free. What exactly is the incentive to put a lot of work into UI so that the holy newbies are pleased? Feel free to join the devs and contribute to a better UI, it's not falling from the sky on its own.

If you find traces of irony and/or sarcasm, well, do what you want with it.

[X-ray]

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

they just need to get used to it, most of desktop wallet are easy as heck if they know the basic, i'd even say modern banking app are more complicated, even plenty of wallet have a big receive and send button, I think this UX is already perfect, though that's just my 2 cents.

it's kinda different though if you're using wallet that provides multi blockchain support, that could become complicated since they need to cater to the different blockchain thus might have too much feature that might intimidate the newbies. but overall if they are willing to spend 10 minute to learn i'm sure they can understand it.