The first few minutes of any relationship are critical - first impressions count. This is especially true for blockchain applications because the underlying technology is inevitably complicated. That's why here at the DeSo NoCode Institute we are constantly obsessing over user on-boarding. To be honest, if you don't want to fail, it has to be great.
Good developers understand the importance of friction in their applications. They know that by adding just the right amount of friction, they can keep users from leaving their app prematurely and ensure that they stick around.
Every additional click or form field is an opportunity to lose a customer’s interest. When it comes to user on-boarding, this is especially important at the beginning of the relationship. If you make it difficult for users to sign up, they will be less likely to stick around and explore your application. That's why we've worked to keep the on-boarding process as simple as possible. We want to make it easy for users to get started and see the value in our applications.
In this blog post, we'll discuss how we've worked to remove friction from the user on-boarding experience.
But first, we'd like for you to consider the process of creating an account on OpenSea, the world's leading NFT marketplace. Here is a list of steps you must take if you want to be able to bid on auctions on the site:
- Get a compatible wallet (requires installing a browser plugin like metamask)
- Open an account on an exchange (for example, Coinbase)
- Purchase some ETH on the exchange (usually requires connecting a bank account or a credit card)
- Send your ETH to your wallet
- Convert ETH to WETH using shapeshifter
- Open an account on OpenSea
- Connect your wallet to your new OpenSea account (requires signing 2 or 3 transactions which incurre gas fees)
- Add your email address to your account and confirm through double optin.
- Finally, Make a winning bid on an auction
Here are some of the ways we've simplified things:
- Users can signup using their Google, Spotify or Twitter accounts or using their email address.
- Once they verify their email address, we walk them through the process of creating (or connecting an existing) DeSo wallet.
- They are now fully activated in the application.
Below is a series of screenshots that illustrate the entire process: