A few months ago, we set out to address the usability challenges in the crypto ecosystem.
āUsability challengesā has become this abstract phrase tossed around frequently. What exactly are the usability challenges?
We interviewed 20+ Ethereum dApp teams to find out.
From those customer research interviews, and from actively identifying trends in dApp experimentation, we developed our mission and a feature road map.
Ahnboardās mission is to help blockchain applications onboard, engage, & understand their users.
We see ourselves as a steward of translation ā the usability bridge between applications and end users.
Today, weāre thrilled to inch toward that vision and announce the release of our first feature: a minimal embeddable onboarding checklist widget for end users of MetaMask-enabled Ethereum desktop dApps.
Specific right? Hereās the research that led us there.
Ahnboard Alpha
Ahnboard Alpha is a minimal onboarding checklist for end users. DApps embed it into their application or guide users to our hosted version to ensure their end users are ready to interact with their dApp.
We know how annoying an intrusive pop-up can be when you get a to a new application. You just want to poke around and see whatās going on!
Thatās why weāve created a widget that nestles quietly but usefully into dApps.
Most dApp users currently already have this all figured out but we are building for and want to help onboard the other 99.99% of users ā with a minimally invasive pop-up only when end users need it and only when they click on it.
Weāre creating more features, widgets, and UI wrappers around this theme.
The helper widget checks for four things:
- MetaMask installed
- MetaMask unlocked & properly configured
- Is the user on main net?
- Is the dApp desktop compatible?
More checks, modularity, and features coming in v2 š
The page itself also serves as a readiness check, so feel free to direct your dAppās end users to the end user checklist to help ensure their readiness. Weāre building out educational content around each check and will embed it on that page.
We decided to open it up entirely at this early Alpha stage to get feedback and improve from there.
We value the experimentation that the Ethereum ecosystem fosters and encourage dApps, infrastructure projects, and community members to actively participate in discussion with us as we experiment around onboarding, usability, and growing the dApp ecosystem.
Okay, how do I use this thing?
Weāre in the process of building a simple React component. Until then, you can go to our checklist page to either integrate the checklist using an iframe or use the Web3 JS code to run the backend of the checklist.
If you need integration assistance, join us in Discord and weāll help right away.
FEEDBACK PLEASE!!!
Use the Usersnap widget in the bottom right hand corner of any page and give us feedback on anything product, onboarding, or usability related. Feedback allows us to improve the ecosystem and onboarding for new end users.
Weāll consolidate our findings and share the feedback with the community at-large to help accelerate Ethereum end user adoption.
Why MetaMask?
Currently, a large majority of dApps use MetaMask as the primary access point for dApp interaction.
We fully expect meaningful alternatives to emerge (and weāre already seeing this with Dapper, Portis, Formatic, WalletConnect, Bitski and more). Which brings us to the future of Ahnboardā¦
Future of Ahnboard
Ahnboardās mission is to help blockchain applications onboard, engage, & understand their users.
This checklist is the first feature in the onboard part of our mission.
Weāre bundling usability solutions to create a full-featured adoption platform for ALL dApps and crypto-related applications.
MetaMask is just a starting point for feature development and Ethereum-based applications are a starting target market. We envision a diverse future world full of dApps, crypto-related applications, traditional web applications with a crypto component, and everything in between.
They will all necessitate a full-featured adoption platform to help fuel their growth. Specifically:
Onboarding ā Ensure user readiness via prompts and checks.
Engagement ā Gamify user activation and engagement with rewards.
Analytics ā Track and collect key user metrics and assess engagement campaigns.
More thoughts on that in the not so distant futureā¦
Get started with the onboarding checklist. And, donāt forget to give us brutal, honest feedback in the Usersnap widget. We will openly share our findings with the ecosystem.
Special thanks to all the dApps who helped us with early customer research, our close partners who helped guide us to this point, and the entire MetaCartel. The Ahnboard journey is just beginning.
DApp developer? Sign up to receive a periodic newsletter including resources, tooling, articles and infrastructure to assist you on your dApp building journey.
