As of 2022, most people had very little knowledge of NFTs; even fewer knew how NFTs worked, what crypto wallets were, and absolutely no idea what any of the crypto-specific terminology meant. This provided a challenge in our approach to designing an application that leveraged the power of NFTs and the usability of a modern shopping app. How do we make it usable for regular non-crypto people, AKA “normies”.

To understand the mindsets and level of “crypto-concept” understanding prospective users held, we conducted ethnographic interviews with a wide range of individuals and crypto “experience” levels. Speaking to users with as much experience as Bored Ape holders to those just dipping their toes into the world of NFTs, we learned quite a bit about shared understandings and deep knowledge deficiencies people have towards this new space. The results were as expected, the highly-technically NFT/Crypto ecosystem would impose serious challenges incorporating terminology and interaction patterns into the application. A lot of care was taken to guide, abstract, and remap complicated crypto metaphors for novice users.  

Equipped with this knowledge, our team set out to design not only the interface and experience as it would exist with the Shop app, but also the wallet connection logic and a complete UI component design system. This enabled Shopify's development team to build the multi-platform app with remarkable speed, while maintaining an experience that adhered to the findings from our user research.

Using this product, Shopify was able to facilitate an NFT airdrop to select employees before the Summit, allowing them to unlock an e-commerce shop store and claim a limited edition print. Our work helped expedite the development of the experience by ensuring as few revisions as possible. The end result was a beautiful, easy-to-use experience that delighted users and showcased the power of blockchain technology in e-commerce.