What could be the possible constraints in achieving the goals?

I started off by laying down the prompts and questions that popped up while I tried to understand the problems that I need to solve ie, and the possible challenges:

• Limited actions by investors:

  I bear in mind that the investors and the funds they are using as investors are the primary target market for high-income people. The users should be able to connect the wallet using web3 integration techniques and view a list of active companies and the available stakes in accordance with the Web3 design principles. Therefore, investing in the business of their choice is the primary step.

• Seamless flow to accessing the seed rounds:

  To properly complete a round, they ought to be able to investigate the accessible seeds. Data that is not required shouldn’t be entered here.

• One flow till a process is complete:

  The main flow of the product is to ‘invest/fund’ a seed round, therefore, it has the highest priority and there should be a single flow to that action.

What is the journey of our customers?

At this point, I already have a concise idea of how to pan out the users’ frustrations. The journey is between two different types of customers: the company owners & the investors. The users that create companies have to register first, after which they can enlist the company details and wait for verification of a period of time that has to be stated clearly. While enlisting, data for their token smart contract and token economics information has to be collected. The next step is to create rounds where these users can set the duration of the rounds and lockup period. They can create any number of rounds. These rounds can have tokens that can be acquired by investors and subsequent percentages of the company that they cost.
The second type of customer is the users that can invest. After connecting their wallet using web3 integration, they can now view the list of all available companies with open shares to be acquired. They can now select and purchase the token shares of that company.

Stage 2: Define

Competitive Analysis

The first step in analyzing Quidraise’s competitors was to identify the direct and indirect competition. I analyzed about 4 products that came close to what Quidraise was about.

• GetEquity (https://getequity.io)
• Binance Launchpad (https://launchpad.binance.com/en)
• Oasis (https://oasis.app)

Of all the listed products, most of them were indirect competitors and this is understandable considering how the Web3 space has a lot of open opportunities for ideas. I used these competitors to collect findings on how users interact with some UX decisions made by the designers of these products. For example,

GetEquity offered various platforms for companies and investors, each with a distinct entry point. A comprehensive website outlining the features of each of the two, each of which links to its own dashboard. I was also able to obtain certain crucial details from the GetEquity onboarding/register process that a conventional company would require to start looking for funding. A blockchain startup, on the other hand, required entirely different information, which I looked into by doing research and having meetings with the engineering team. Some key features or actions I got ideas from GetEquity were How companies place tokens for sale, and deal rooms but a simple version named chat rooms, I did not like the user experience of the listing of tokens by companies, Quidraise as a blockchain application had no need for an in-built wallet since it uses the connect wallet of Web3 applications.

I adopted the Binance Launchpad method of listing companies since I thought it would be more appealing to users. I had to stick with something that was roughly related to what the launch pool displayed, which included all the pools along with more specific information about each of them. I also adopted how company profiles appeared, showing the total amount bet, the cost of shares for tokens, etc.

Oasis had little to no precedent, but because of the clear and uncomplicated design of the Web3 interfaces and connections, I also borrowed some of their aesthetics, particularly the uncluttered user interface and navigational frameworks.

As a competitor, Apollo made the biggest impression. beginning with the signup process, which is primarily useful for businesses alone. The information required for company shares, such as the current round, launch date, lockup period, and so forth, was pertinent.

Having this list made it easier for me to realize that, once ideation was complete, we would be able to determine what was crucial for our MVP and what could wait until later.

User flow

From the ideas drafted out from the features that had been defined and validated, I created a simple user flow that would connect both the companies and the investors, I ended up with two alternative user flows as a result of this.

Usability Testing

We tested the app between ourselves as a team, making further revisions to the actions and flows as we went. Additionally, we made an effort to prioritize these aspects more during the design process by giving them greater weight. Because we used a more qualitative approach, the usability testing produced a lot of value. I assigned assignments to some of them and instructed them to make an effort to complete them. I waited and watched for them to accomplish these objectives; when they did, more of my design findings were confirmed; nevertheless, when they encountered significant difficulties, I noted them and updated my designs. The software development team performed the majority of these tests.

Stage 3: Diverge

Stage 4: Prototype

Mid-fi Prototype

Another iteration of the ideas was the medium fidelity. Since there would be many movable parts and data to work with on the dashboard, I made the decision to start there. It was crucial that I set up the data in the medium fidelity correctly.

As I got closer to the high-fidelity prototype, we understood there would be two dashboards. Since the user flow and research were written in that order, high fidelity was anticipated to go without a hitch. I created the following for the project in high quality.

For Investors

1. Explore Page

The list of corporate pools that investors can stake in is the main emphasis of the explore page. The fact that these pools have a defined lifespan determined by the companies is what inspired my designconcept to separate them into “Active” and “Ended” pools. In that situation, consumers can check to see if the pool they were watching has closed.

The pools have cards that may be invested in directly, although only a little amount of information appears on the company cards. These cards have the greatest hierarchy and most significant value, thus the information on them is displayed. The inclusion of a card display for users who might run their own company was another crucial design decision. They might become frustrated if they couldn’t understand the investor dashboard if such were the case.

As a strategy to optimize the traffic on Quidraise, there are separate dashboards for both investors and companies to account for both actors.

2. Company Overview

A user may be interested in learning additional information about a company after becoming aware of it in the list of pools. What the investor might need to know about the company is thoroughly explained on this page. Including the funding in groups and tabs and all the specifics.

3. Invest in a Pool

The user must now withdraw funds from their wallet in order to invest in a certain series of funding. The tricky thing is that, while the investor should have some control over how much cryptocurrency they want to put in, the company must also regulate this. The invest page has to be straightforward and extremely user-friendly for investors to deposit crypto-based shares in order to prevent situations where investors sent large sums of money and were then granted the same shares as another investor with a different amount.

TThe price of a share is determined by the company and depends on the undergoing series. With this knowledge, the design became simple; investors may now choose to invest by shares (%) or by a fixed price ($).

4. NFT Award

Once the investors have used their cryptocurrency to purchase company shares. They now have invested in this company. In order to represent their ownership in these projects, they are now issued NFTs. Additionally, this NFT confirms the investors’ membership. From this point on, depending on the various companies you invest with, you may earn multiple NFTs. Since more people can now invest in companies as venture capital, designing for NFTs was actually very intriguing.

5. Portfolio Page

How do they maintain track of these projects if they invest in multiple companies? Since the explore page is initially just for the pools and all the investment options, there needs to be another distinct page from the explore page. The information architecture that I generated left me with important data for the dashboard like

• The list of companies that you have invested in which results in the total portfolio value.
• The total amount that you’ve spent in investing in companies.
• The total number of rounds and resulting shares from these companies and how many the companies are.
• The list of NFTs and the value(%) they have and the companies they are linked with.
• Voting info and prompt-to-vote options.

How do they maintain track of these projects if they invest in multiple companies? Since the explore page is initially just for the pools and all the investment options, there needs to be another distinct page from the explore page. The information architecture that I generated left me with important data for the dashboard like

Other pages like activities, notifications, watchlist, and voting information are to keep the user in sync.

For Companies

The company dashboard is an incredible tool for companies that are already in operation and are searching for finance for Web 3 projects. You must register with the information about your business that investors will examine before deciding whether or not to invest in it.

7. Onboarding & Verification Processes

This is a thorough registration process for companies that will thereafter be examined and admitted to the platform. When users view a certain company, the information that is often displayed on the fields is what they will see on their pages. This authentication process ensures that the platform is not being filled with spam companies.

The remaining companies have devised new methods for controlling when rounds are opened to investors, during the lockup period when funds are accepted one at a time, and when they are closed for new rounds. The summary of the portfolio apart from the rounds is pretty much the same. A smart usage of design patterns for the investors’ dashboards as well as company dashboards.

5. Validate

At this time, I had done designing and refining the prototypes. I brought the crew together since it was time for everyone to be open and tell the truth like a new time user. One of the drawbacks of doing these studies with random people was that we were unable to ascertain the users’ past experience with blockchain technology. It is necessary to perform a complete usability test on the dashboards. The stakeholders and every member of the team treated the prototype as though it were the finished product.

Conclusion & Key Takeaways

On a personal level, creating the entire product was really motivating, enlightening, and productive for me.

However, there were also some areas of concern that were identified. Some of the possible struggles that users that found it a bit difficult to fully understand blockchain was put to consideration and made the design as easy to use without numerous confusing and unfamiliar terms. Additionally, the product’s reliance on cryptocurrency made it easy for most crypto users to get started.

Overall, I came up with solutions on how investors can easily fund projects in a smooth flow. I was also proud of how investors could buy shares in percentages or fixed prices and the results of the test of these flows validated my flows. The final tests came out very responsive and prototypes were handed over to the developers.