We sit down with one of our design team OGs, Chester, aka Chester LaCroix, to chat about the epic 7 UIs to 1 update and what it was like for a non-crypto native to start his blockchain career in a DeFi protocol like Sushi.
As someone more on the outskirts of the crypto world how did you first hear about Sushi and how did you get involved?
I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled across Sushi actually, but I do remember that either late August or early September I read about it in one of the crypto publications, like Coin Telegraph. I didn’t know anything about DeFi but I felt so fascinated by what I was reading. I had been interested in and dabbled with crypto trading here and there, but it had become my goal, during the pandemic, to learn more about cryptocurrencies and see where it would take me. So it really caught my attention because 1) I was trying to learn about this industry in general and 2) Sushi is literally my favorite food. So when I saw that there was this “SUSHI” thing going on I just knew I had to check it out. I was reading and following the project for only a week or two at this point and then all the Chef Nomi stuff happened.
With that whole incident I was even more intrigued, because until then I had only interacted with normie things like Coinbase and never really dove into any DeFi applications or platforms, so I was curious to check it out. I even signed up for Discord specifically to see what was going on in the Sushi server. I was so impressed by the fact that people could just up and contribute without any hurdles - I saw that was a marketing channel and that not a lot was going on, compared to the development channel. I started striking up some conversations, making a couple graphics, throwing around some ideas, just seeing how it would go, and that’s where it all started.
I saw there was a need for designers to help out, because as cute as the NYANCAT was, there wasn’t a lot of importance or emphasis on design or branding. That’s what I was doing IRL at a company, which to be honest I loathed, so I thought, hey maybe this is my chance to actually be a part of something I’m excited about.
There is that special something about Sushi that draws people in and gets them excited and I hope it’s something that never goes away.
That’s how I got involved really. I just did things voluntarily, made myself part of conversations and gave suggestions enough to start joining team meetings and got involved enough where I was almost being annoying trying to help out and still asking a lot of noob questions, because everything was still so new to me. I eventually started doing some projects on a grant basis for a while, and later I made the proposal to become a full timer, got offered the position and here I am. Personally, I’m still so hyped about this project. It is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done.
So just through intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm and sheer will power I made something that I was really interested in, my job. It’s quite literally a dream come true.
Where do you get your design inspiration from?
Both as an artist and as a designer, I’ve always been more of a minimalist. My previous professional background is in e-commerce. I did a lot of UI/UX work there and in retail the one goal is to convert the sale: Make it easier and faster for customers to throw their money at us before they have a chance to change their minds. So with how I approach UI design, my focus is how to take out unnecessary distractions, but still have an aesthetic presence that is unique but not overdone. It is a definite push and pull, but I think as simple as we can be is best. One of the sayings I remind myself of when creating UI designs is a saying amongst old ladies that goes something like: “Every time you’re dressed up, dolled up, ready to go… Before you leave the house, take off one accessory.”
Do you live by that?
I try to, but in my personal style I’m more of a more is more kinda guy.
I was going to say, we might want to tell Poison Hikari to erase the earring in your illustration to match your mantra.
Your proposal was probably one of the most in depth from all the employment proposals we’ve seen in the Sushi Forum. What is something that you’ve accomplished from that and what is still on your to do list?
It’s hard for me to remember all the details since it was posted back in January, which feels like over a year ago now. So I’ll just pull it up. My favourite feedback I received from this post was: “I can’t speak to his contributions, but I saw him on the core team call on YouTube and I thought to myself: ’Wow he has style. I bet he’s a designer.’” Other than that, the feedback was fairly positive, but the first bullet point in my proposal is about creating a unified brand across all the various Sushi verticals, which I would say is definitely still a work in progress given that more products keep coming all the time. But, on the other hand, I would also say we’ve made great progress on doing this front.
For example with staking, you used to have to go to a whole other non-Sushi UI to actually do that and we’ve now got a simple and streamlined staking interface within the app. Then working with Kashi, which is kind of a separate thing, but kind of not, we had to work on finding ways to integrate that into the UI well. Not too long ago we had so many moving pieces in terms of UI. People were farming on Classic, they were doing swaps on LITE, checking the stats on App and although some of that still exists, I can confidently say that the UI on app.sushi.com is now far ahead of what it was in terms of sleekness, simplicity and largely having everything in one package. I am very pleased with the positive feedback that we’ve been getting and happy that I’ve been able to deliver solid progress thus far.
I think that we’ve made good strides by simplifying a lot of these complex processes and making it easier to understand. I came into this position as a DeFi noobie, and although I still have a lot to learn, I’m not exactly clueless as I once was. I think, however, that this lack of knowledge coming in was actually an advantage here because if what I was designing was too convoluted that I as a noob I couldn’t figure it out, I knew that we hadn’t gotten it right yet. Even now I try and create designs that the Chester of 6 months ago would understand. I don’t want to say dumb it down, per se, but making it more accessible is key. Aside from gas costs and the financial hurdles of that, it is so incredibly technical and esoteric that the knowledge gap is such a large barrier to entry in so much of DeFi. So I am always trying to make it my priority to keep the perspective of someone with a decent but not professional level of understanding when it comes to usability. Again, still a lot of work to be done, but I think, myself and the design team have been successful in working to bring things to a more accessible level.
Speaking about the accessibility of the UI. There have been a lot of updates and advances, but what is something missing that you would like to see?
I would like to see even more interconnectedness and even more contextual guidance and information. It is a very fine line to toe between overwhelming the user with information and alienating the people who are intimately familiar with this technology’s machinations, and keeping things very sleek and simple for those in the know while alienating less-experienced users. As much as I’m not a huge fan of Robinhood, I do think that they do a good job of abstracting away complex concepts that your average user doesn’t need to know and making them very clearly explained and easy to use. Finding ways to make the UI help users learn it on their own, instead of watching YouTube tutorials or asking a bunch of questions on Discord, which I think are great, but we can always improve on reducing the barriers to entry.
To give an anecdote from my e-commerce days: In online retail, there was something called cross-exposure, which amounts to a product or service that you’re offering that needs more eyes on it, but not driving that attention by only trying to push people to only the one place they can find it. You, instead, thoughtfully place that product on other relevant places on the site so that there are other ways to get to the end of the maze so to speak. So, how I see that happening on Sushi, instead of everything being completely siloed, for example, going to “this” specific page to stake xSUSHI or “this” specific place to do x action, I would want to see these actions accessible from various places within the app. A good example is farming and claiming rewards. Right now that process is largely siloed, but I see that as something being possible to accomplish on various places. For example, your portfolio page could have options to “Add” more to the farming positions you are in or “Unstake and Claim” buttons from there as well. Or maybe you’re looking up a token and there’s a little button that pops up a swap function, so you can do that action right then and there without having to navigate all these different pages.
For MISO both retail investors and project founders can expect a colorful and easy-to-follow UI to help you get in early on hot upcoming token sales and a very simple step-by-step process for creating tokens, listing them for sale and setting up a liquidity pool on sushi.com!
Sort of along the lines of cross-exposure, a lot of people tend to want to see more of a lighthearted side on our Sushi main Twitter, along with the more serious news. What are your thoughts?
For the main Twitter I think it should not necessarily be super corporate but at the same time, I think it would be a bit of a misstep to have our Sushi twitter account be just a bunch of memes and jokes, just for the sake of them being memes and jokes. If there can be really clever, relevant memes about something big that’s happening that also gets the word out, that would be the sweet spot.
Speaking of memes, last week there was a controversial topic that some might argue is a meme. How do you feel about the uniswap.com domain “meme?”
I think that we have a lot of brain power on the team and a lot of that gets a little lost when news like this drowns the Twitter feeds, so I was happy to find out that it was not the team that did it. I personally thought that it was very funny and Ithink that this is just part of the banter culture that just exists in DeFi and I think that people who get deeply upset about that should take everything with a grain of salt, it just is what it is. While I do find it funny, I am unsure about the long-term effects or the implications of things like this, so I would be wary if a move like this were coming from management, so to speak. Right now, DeFi is so niche and has a very unique community with a great sense of humor. As the space grows and as Sushi and other key players in the space grow, I do think that it is important to keep in mind the long-term PR implications of things like that if we are intending to be taken very seriously.
Your personal goal during the pandemic was to learn about the crypto world. What’s your personal goal in the Sushi world?
I wish that I could have more conversations with the community and hear their thoughts on things, in terms of UI, and their ideas about seeing what we can do to reduce friction by simplifying user flows. I’m a bit of a workaholic and someone who is not really interested in social media, but I want to dedicate some of my personal time to get more active on my one social media account, my Chester LaCroix Twitter, and also get more engaged in the Discord and interact with the feedback. Actually a newer team member, Cabbage, has been doing great things with this, by interviewing members of the community and collecting feedback we use to iterate on our designs. As Sushi grows and as the team grows, this is something I want to invest more time in, because, at the end of the day, this platform is for the community, and they use it a heck of a lot more than I have time for, so I want to lean more into what they want to see from us and make their Sushi platform wishes come true.
What do you like to do for fun outside of work?
I love to travel, which has clearly not been a thing for the past year or so. I’ve done a lot of solo travel, backpacking or hitchhiking around Europe and Iceland. So I am itching to get out there again. I’m also really big into concerts. I like drawing and reading, just chilling out.
Since sushi is your favorite food, you must have tried out many different types. Any that you didn’t like?
As much as I really want to like it, I’m really not a fan of squid or eel.
Usually those both come out cooked, so we’ll give you a pass! Time for the final question:
What’s your favorite sushi?
I’m a big fan of yellowtail.
Keep on the look out for more weekly Sushi core team interviews!
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