Equalizer: The Mobile First update, and the importance of inclusivity in DeFi
Equalizer Exchange has just pushed the first iteration of our mobile first infrastructure. Mobile first is a common design practice for traditional web2 applications, so why sometimes are these issues plaguing DeFi?
Key words throughout this article:
Mobile First: A development approach to prioritise how the website looks on mobile and tablet devices, working upwards to a desktop device.
Frontend Development: Frontend development focuses on building and designing the parts of a website or application that users see and interact with.
dApp: A decentralised application, an application accessed through a web3 wallet such as metamask
When Equalizer Exchange launched, It was apparent that a wave of improvements had to be made based on feedback from our community. Well we listened, brought on board our Frontend Lead Jae and are pulling through and making dramatic improvements to how the app functions across different devices.
Mobile device usage in the modern world
It’s no shock to discover that a lot of how we interact with the internet in our daily lives is through our mobile phones. Not only is it convenient, but it gives us the power to browse & transact from anywhere in the world using mobile wallets such as Metamask.
According to Statista and Hootsuite, Over 6.4 billion people are using a smartphone to interact with websites & 79% of all social media consumption is happening via smartphones. This number is substantial, and since a large portion of crypto marketing happens on platforms such as Twitter, it’s important to be able to easily convert interest into dApp usage.
Mobile device usage in Cryptocurrency & DeFi
As cryptocurrency becomes more accessible worldwide we need to look towards integrating the world of web2 standards into web3. Over the years there has been a large shift from the first bitcoin wallets to the wallets we have the option of using today, where previously almost all interactions had to happen on a desktop device.
While the world of DeFi is still relatively new, mobile wallets which support it did not exist until 2019 so it’s understandable there will be a lot of apps created before then which were solely focused on desktop only.
Here is a couple of reasons why a decentralised application may still not be mobile optimised in 2023:
• Resource & team constraints, additional development required
• Limited support for certain blockchains with mobile wallets
• Overall preference of desktop experience to minimise errors when trading
• Additional security measures such as 2FA or connecting to a hardware wallet being required
• Limited overall support for mobile wallets in the world of Web3 technology
As Jae was working on Equalizer & his own project NinjaYielder, he found that over 40% of the traffic the dApp was receiving was from mobile devices.
If you take a look at the top 5 countries by cryptocurrency usage, You’ll see that India & Nigeria are number 2 & 3. These countries are almost exclusively mobile first with 75% (1,2) using a mobile device to perform transactions. As adoption grows it is paramount that we position our application in a way that can support all users.
What are we doing about it?
Today, we are launching our first step into making the Equalizer app fully mobile first. We will be combatting issues and pushing fixes continuously to give our users the best experience regardless of device. We have a lot more to come, but we are excited to get the foundation out there to our users and set ourselves on the right side of mainstream adoption.
Summary
Equalizer has been working on improving the app based on community feedback and making improvements to how the app functions across different devices. Mobile devices are becoming the primary way people interact with the internet, and this is no different for the world of cryptocurrency and DeFi. However, many decentralised applications are not yet mobile optimised. With India and Nigeria ranking as the second and third countries by cryptocurrency usage, it is important to make the Equalizer app fully mobile first to support all users. The team has launched the first step in making the Equalizer app mobile first, with plans to continuously fix issues and provide the best user experience regardless of device.
