"User Friendly" Bitcoin Wallets

[jackg]

I, personally, quite like the look of the Bitcoin core wallet and other wallet apps. However, they do apear to be quite minimalistic and in no way look attractive for users (as in, you have to know quite a large amount about bitcoin before you can use it. e.g bitcoin addresses, transaction fees...)

Is there any solution that has been thought of to counter act this as I think the bitcoin wallet is probably only attractive to those with enough knowledge to understand a large amount of it (hence no mass adoption).

[1714160784]

1714160784

[1714160784]

1714160784

[1714160784]

1714160784

[1714160784]

1714160784

[1714160784]

1714160784

[pooya87]

that is the problem that comes from programmers in general not being so interested about user interfaces, if you let them they will end up doing everything in console.
however, you can always make suggestion to improve the experience and they may change it.

also i do not agree that the UI is not user friendly, maybe the correct thing to say is that they are not Newbie friendly. and for that i don't think there is any solution. because to use bitcoin you need some knowledge about how it works.

but if you have the minimal knowledge of what is a bitcoin address/public key or what is private key and how to make a transaction then almost all wallets are easily understandable.

[sellcollateral]

I agree with everything pooya87 said, i only wanted to add that, since you're in the alternative clients subforum, i do think some of the alternative clients actually ARE pretty newbie friendly.

I personally suggested multibit HD to a couple of new users in the past, since i personally think it hides a lot of the complexity... Offcourse, once a new users starts to learn about bitcoin, multibit HD might be a problem since it misses some coin controll features that are needed by more experienced users (like input selection, fee manipulation, exporting private keys,...).

In the end, it seems like a tradeoff, either you pick a wallet with a full feature set like core, but end up with a wallet that is not so newbie friendly.... OR you pick a wallet that's newbie friendly but might be missing some more expert functions.

[maku]

Op, but you don't have to know anything about bitcoin wallets other than: "I can send and receive bitcoin though it".
You don't have to tinker with bitcoin addresses, import/export keys, you don't need to change a fee at all, as automatic fee system works pretty good.
Bitcoin is easy to use/learn hard to master kind of invention. I can't imagine any human who used a computer before couldn't handle basic bitcoin wallet to send/receive BTC.

[kolloh]

I know that Blockchain.info has made their new online wallet a lot more newbie friendly where you don't have to understand which addresses funds are stored in to send, etc.

I personally hate as a more advanced user as it gives you much less control over individual addresses, but new users to Bitcoin might like the ease of use I suppose.

[jackg]

Op, but you don't have to know anything about bitcoin wallets other than: "I can send and receive bitcoin though it".
You don't have to tinker with bitcoin addresses, import/export keys, you don't need to change a fee at all, as automatic fee system works pretty good.
Bitcoin is easy to use/learn hard to master kind of invention. I can't imagine any human who used a computer before couldn't handle basic bitcoin wallet to send/receive BTC.

Erm... it isn't. To someone like me or you then it probably is easy. But to a person who doesn't like the use of copmuters or doesn't use them very much it would be very difficult to start. Most people when starting with computers/hones. Start with sending email/text messages (not really transferring money to a 34 character bitcoin address that you copy and paste from a website with so many things that could go wrong) - If one character is inaccurate, your funds could be lost!

I know that Blockchain.info has made their new online wallet a lot more newbie friendly where you don't have to understand which addresses funds are stored in to send, etc.

I personally hate as a more advanced user as it gives you much less control over individual addresses, but new users to Bitcoin might like the ease of use I suppose.

I do like the console commands when they can be used and they are easy and give you more power. I'm not suggesting we remove them. I'm merely stating that something that gives a user less power is helpful for when they start. Using services that maybe don't offer the client to get the private keys or even addreesses could be one way (just paying via email which can be done with coinbase.com and xapo - i believe). But they also need to be more user friendly.

[Cereberus]

Well Electrum.org is a desktop wallet with all the features a newbie can ask during the time his is tinkering with bitcoin and learning the basics. It is not difficult, if the person who uses Electrum wallet have at least the culture and time to read the full documentation of it in the official website will not have problems.

So far from what I read in the Alternative clients section here I can conclude that Electrum is the most user friendly wallet for the moment, when above steps are completed (i.e reading all documentation).

[ArcCsch]

One thing that could be made better is support for non-standard transactions.
Really, try to create a 2/3 multisignature address and you will see what I mean, not user-friendly at all.
I think a wallet should have a highly visual interface, it can use the slabs in boxes analogy in this post.
So a visual box can represent each address, with visual slabs of different sizes within to represent unspent outputs (can have a 3D appearance so 1BTC can be only ten times larger in every dimension than 1mBTC). Each slab can have info on it, like the amount, confirmations, and time or receipt as well as a label written by the user. The address boxes (with the address string somewhere of course) can have a symbolic keyhole in one corner, colour coded green if the wallet ully controls it, yellow if the public key is known, and red if it is not controlled by the wallet (watch only). Before a transaction is signed, it is shown to the user with the input slabs on the left, output slabs on the right, arrows to represent direction, and a slab directly below centre to represent the fee.

[jackg]

One thing that could be made better is support for non-standard transactions.
Really, try to create a 2/3 multisignature address and you will see what I mean, not user-friendly at all.
I think a wallet should have a highly visual interface, it can use the slabs in boxes analogy in this post.
So a visual box can represent each address, with visual slabs of different sizes within to represent unspent outputs (can have a 3D appearance so 1BTC can be only ten times larger in every dimension than 1mBTC). Each slab can have info on it, like the amount, confirmations, and time or receipt as well as a label written by the user. The address boxes (with the address string somewhere of course) can have a symbolic keyhole in one corner, colour coded green if the wallet ully controls it, yellow if the public key is known, and red if it is not controlled by the wallet (watch only). Before a transaction is signed, it is shown to the user with the input slabs on the left, output slabs on the right, arrows to represent direction, and a slab directly below centre to represent the fee.

That might work well to make it more user riendly. Has that idea been coded yet (possibly not to difficult to do as everything is open source)?
Maybe also add more and better features such as an estimate for how long the transaction will take to get 1 confirmation and how long it'll take to get 3/5 or 10 confirmations (where it is accepted by a website it is used on)...

Not sure the 3D effect would be especially useful, but a 2D effect would work? Or maybe a 3D effect with each pixel representing a satoshi (by default but changeable).

[ArcCsch]

That might work well to make it more user riendly. Has that idea been coded yet (possibly not to difficult to do as everything is open source)?

I don't think it has been coded.

Maybe also add more and better features such as an estimate for how long the transaction will take to get 1 confirmation and how long it'll take to get 3/5 or 10 confirmations (where it is accepted by a website it is used on)...

Good ideas.

Not sure the 3D effect would be especially useful, but a 2D effect would work? Or maybe a 3D effect with each pixel representing a satoshi (by default but changeable).

The main idea for 3D versus 2D is that with a 2D effect, 64mBTC takes up 64 times as much screen space as 1mBTC, but with a 3D effect it only takes up 16 times the space.

[jackg]

That might work well to make it more user riendly. Has that idea been coded yet (possibly not to difficult to do as everything is open source)?

I don't think it has been coded.

That's a shame it hasn't been coded. It'd be fairly simple to take an already coded project such as a python wallet and change that to have this interface. Or even just use an API to a hosted wallet site in order to get this information.

I'd also suggest that instead of having addresses, the user instead has "labels" that they can select. So if you want to send something to someone you coud use something memorable like a 4 digit number relavent to them, their name or even a phone number that is linked to that address so it can be sent easily.

Not sure the 3D effect would be especially useful, but a 2D effect would work? Or maybe a 3D effect with each pixel representing a satoshi (by default but changeable).

The main idea for 3D versus 2D is that with a 2D effect, 64mBTC takes up 64 times as much screen space as 1mBTC, but with a 3D effect it only takes up 16 times the space.

[/quote]
That is quite a good point that the 64mBTC would be 8 times the size of the 1mBTC one so it is proportional.
You could also then probably have a way of changing from ^3 (3D) to ^2 (2D) and ^4... (although ^4 may be hard to visualise unless the graphics can rotate).