Leaders Series: Jaclyn Leneé @ Purse

Issue 19 — March 22nd, 2017

This series highlights the unique stories of leaders from various communities across the growing digital currency and blockchain technology industry. The goal is to showcase the fantastic work these leaders are all doing at different levels of their respective organizations, and to encourage more people at all stages of their careers join the revolution we’re creating, together!

Jaclyn Lenee is the Senior Product Designer at Purse

She’s been in the bitcoin community for the last year.

How did you get introduced to blockchain technology?

By accident. My design mentor recommended me to Purse to work as a part-time designer, so I took them on as a client.

When I started working with Purse, I didn’t know much about Bitcoin. My partner had mined Bitcoin in college, but I wasn’t personally invested. Over time, I learned about how people were using Bitcoin across the globe. I learned that Bitcoin gives folks in volatile countries more control over their funds. That Bitcoin enables women to control funds in areas where they’re not allowed to have a bank account. I began to see the vision for how Bitcoin could flatten the world, by providing financial freedom to all.

What did you do before you got into this?

I worked as a product design consultant for various startups within San Francisco. Most recently I worked with Couchsurfing, where we supported connections between travelers worldwide. Before pursuing consulting solo, I worked for software development consultancy Pivotal Labs. Thats when I learned Lean UX methods, and began championing user research within development teams.

I went to school for graphic design. My first job was working as a design intern at AdRoll. I joined their tiny team and watched the company grow 10x in a short time. I began working more closely with the product team, and kind of stumbled into product management. I discovered the worlds of user experience design, and product strategy. I decided that I wanted to learn as much as possible about how to design useful, usable products, so that I could make a bigger impact with my work.

Tell us a bit more about what you do

I currently work on a small team as a solo designer, so I have had to become a detail-oriented Swiss army knife. My focus is user-centered design, lean product management, & minimalist UI design. We’ve been working to incorporate more user research practices into our development cycles.

This means talking to real users & watching them interact with our product to identify issues. Since our customers are all across the globe, we’re looking to understand their behavior & needs, and how it differs across the various types of humans who use our product.

We’re learning something new every day.

What’s been the most interesting experience you’ve had in your role so far?

Busting assumptions with insights gained in user research.

I feel fortunate to work with a team of very smart individuals, focused on building Bitcoin / blockchain technology.

Naturally, many in the industry build solutions which work with their mental model of the world. As a user experience designer, an important part of my role is to facilitate discovery & to build user empathy within the team.

So we began folding in user-centered research practices to better understand the people attempting to use our product. We sent surveys, and conducted in-person interviews with those new to Bitcoin.

Through this research we discovered that many folks new to Bitcoin felt totally overwhelmed by the basics. “What do I do with this QR code?” “What is this long string of characters?” These were problems that the team couldn’t see from their unique perspective, as Bitcoin experts.

We’re working all the time to make our experience more user-friendly and accessible. Through this work I hope to discover more stumbling blocks to early-mass market adoption, so that we can work as a community to solve them.

What problem is your company, Purse, solving? Why do you feel passionate about this?

I’m most excited about building use cases which give people a reason to use Bitcoin. Individuals are willing to learn new things if we provide them a tangible benefit. At Purse, we provide shoppers opportunities to save money on expenses. Often 20–30% off Amazon (really!). This use case attracts people from all over the world who need to save money. People who otherwise would not invest in BTC.

More people using Bitcoin is essential to our success as an industry. It’s our challenge to build products & services for the many, not just the Bitcoin literate.

What do you think is limiting the growth of the Bitcoin space?

I’m optimistic about the future of Bitcoin & e-commerce. The technology will provide many benefits to consumers & to society.

We need to address Bitcoin’s image problem. Folks outside of the industry are skeptical. Many people associate cryptocurrencies with crime & scandal. Aunt Linda thinks it’s a scam. We have a lot of work to do to build trust outside of our crypto bubble.

What kind of catalyst is needed?

Many products coming out of the space are tech-driven, and complicated for average folks to understand. For Bitcoin to succeed, we need to build products & services which are useful & usable to the masses.

In order for us to reach early-mass market adoption, we need to build solutions which abstract away technical complexity. We need to find new & creative ways to show folks the value in investing in this industry. Build products which provide tangible benefits to the average consumer.

What are you excited about working on?

I hope to inspire dev teams to incorporate user-centered design practices when building with Bitcoin! Talk to real users regularly. Expand beyond our crypto bubble, and build something awesome for Aunt Linda.

Connect with Jaclyn on LinkedIn!