Creating Trust by Redesigning the Way Data is Shared
There’s nothing more satisfying than an app that works the way you expect. As one of the easiest and most intuitive user experiences in the decentralized identity space, we consistently talk with customers to build what matters most to them. While my last post discussed our major app upgrade, we’ve continued to lead the industry with best-in-class UX by completely redesigning the most important user actions in the app, which is adding data to uPort and sharing it with third party services. One of the catalysts for this change was our pilot within the UK FCA regulatory sandbox, enabling us to reach those consumers signing up for financial products. This is all done with Onfido’s reusable identity verification (IDV) credentials integrated into the consumer KYC process.
First and foremost, uPort is a platform for managing trusted transactions within ecosystems of companies and services. This approach allows our partners to provide services to their customers with the uPort mobile app as the face of the user experience. After your data is verified and added to the app, it is stored and can be shared. Third parties request this data, allowing users to easily sign up and get access to services. With the quick scan of a QR code, onboarding to a new service or continual login with single sign-on (SSO) is practically instant. This upgraded core UX experience and functionality brings privacy, security, and control of data back to the user.
As we increasingly move into the consumer mainstream with the uPort mobile app, we’ve interviewed users to get a variety of feedback and understand the main pain points when it comes to sharing data. As a result, we clarified the data sharing experience to create more trust for users so they could understand what they were sharing and with whom. To do this we improved on three core areas:
1. Abstracting away direct blockchain references
2. Focusing on the credential as verified data
3. Creating a marketplace
Abstracting away direct blockchain references create a user-friendly experience
In order to deliver an easy, friction-free experience for a more mainstream audience, we left out the technical information presented when sharing data for a request, such as the user’s decentralized identifier (DID) — an Ethereum address using the Ethr-DID method — and other W3C standard terminology. If you’re reading this section and are confused about what all this means, that’s why we took it out of the app. While these are all standard definitions within the decentralized identity space, it’s unlikely that a typical person would know what these are, ultimately leading to a poor user experience.
Focusing on the credential as verified data is enabling trust
The second change we implemented creates a brand new look for the digital credential. For example, we’ve created a more visually appealing digital representation of a typical physical credential, such as a driver’s license. Previously, all the data was listed without context, but now the data are clearly packaged together. Sharing data is now within the same mental model in which it is stored in the app, showing the data that is verified and by whom.
In addition to redesigning the visual representation of the data within a credential, we also added support for third-party branding for those participating in the Enterprise tier of our platform.
Enable in-app credential use through a marketplace
Finally, we released a new app capability that allows users to view what third party services they can access with their specific credentials. Upon initial receipt of a credential from a third party, users can decide whether to use the credential now or at a later time. By tapping into the credential on the main credential screen, services that accept the credential are always listed for easy access. It’s all right there. We’ve replaced UX ambiguity with peace-of-mind certainty.
Redesigning the requests and adding functionality that helps emphasize trust and where the data can be used ultimately provides more confidence to the user and are changes we made to empower all types of consumers, not just those with previous blockchain knowledge.
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Whether you’re new to uPort or a long-time fan, we hope that you’ll give our latest update a try.
