White-label NFT Marketplace

Overview

As blockchain technology and NFT marketplaces continued to gain traction, our internal stakeholders recognized an opportunity to leverage our blockchain expertise.

Goal

The aim was to develop a full-fledged white-label NFT marketplace solution that could be offered to clients across multiple industries within tight time coinstraints.

What I did

TL;DR

I designed a functional system from scratch to handle NFT transactions, which was successfully built and it delivers a smooth user experience and prioritize usability and accessibility throughout the entire process.

Discovery Research

Given the time constraints on the project, I couldn’t conduct any kickoff workshops, so I got straight into competitor analysis to get a sense of what was ahead. I researched 10 direct and indirect competitors, examining their business models, pricing, target groups, main functionalities, and communication strategies. I also conducted a SWOT analysis on 5 of these competitors to identify risks and potential areas for us to excel.

Additionally, I performed a service safari to gain a better understanding of user behavior and interactions. This hands-on approach helped me pinpoint areas for improvement, outline essential activities and functionalities, and validate them against our scope of work.

One of the key findings was that the results of actions like buying or selling NFTs were not immediately reflected in the system due to delays in communicating with the blockchain. I conducted experiments with team members who had no prior experience with NFTs, and they identified this issue. The delay, which could range from a few seconds to several hours, was unpredictable and needed to be addressed within our platform.

UX Design & Testing

Next up, I kicked off the synthesis phase by building the information architecture, which served as a functional illustration of the system's scope.

Snippet of information architecture

Then I transitioned to creating user flows. These flows were instrumental in illustrating the most important functionalities of our platform, such as minting NFTs, buying and selling, and connecting wallets. At this stage, I was able to propose logical structures that addressed the key research findings, which are better demonstrated in the wireframes below.

User flows regarding primary jobs to be done

I translated user flows into low-fidelity wireframes to conduct A/B user testing sessions. I recruited 8 participants, dividing them into two groups: experts with experience in marketplaces and beginners who had no prior contact with such platforms. I created two scenarios, where one group had access to a space that displayed behind-the-scenes actions on the NFT they had just auctioned, allowing them to stay informed about the status of their auction in the "Processing" section.

“Processing” section in user’s dashboard

Testing confirmed my hypothesis that incorporating this new space into our platform helped users remain aware and informed about the status of their actions. The experienced users were also receptive to this idea, recognizing that it would be particularly beneficial for those new to NFT marketplaces.

Implementation

Finally, I created high-fidelity wireframes and I finalized the documentation, I handed everything off to the product design and development team. I remained involved for a few hours each week to provide ongoing support and help address any design-related issues that came up during the build phase.

The product is now fully developed and is being actively used by our sales team to pitch the white-label NFT marketplace to potential clients.

High fidelity wireframes display for marketing purposes

Conclusions

The project had a very tight schedule, leaving limited time for discovery and focusing primarily on delivering UX solutions which was okay at that time. I will remember this project as a highly collaborative process with blockchain developers who were navigating the technical limitations and opportunities of our solution.

Retrospective insights - what I would have done differently now

1. Explore netnography research to gain more insights into user interactions and community behaviors within the NFT space.
2. Prioritize spending more time on user research, including in-depth interviews with users during both the exploratory phase and after the high-fidelity wireframes are created.
3. Conduct additional validation experiments, such as A/B testing, to further refine the product.