Shelter and grow your wealth, helping people bring down financial borders.
Volya was an international tech startup with a mission to create a world free from the restrictions of traditional banking by leveraging globally trusted blockchain technology.
Summary
I led the UX/UI design for the project, collaborating with brand design, illustration, and animation teams to ensure a cohesive and engaging user experience.
My role included working closely with the engineering team to understand the complexities of cryptocurrency, arbitrage, and trading, ensuring the platform was functional and user-friendly. I conducted extensive stakeholder and user interviews to align the project with user needs, creating detailed personas and identifying key features. I also managed the design and delivery of illustrations, animations, and videos, coordinating with both internal teams and external freelancers. Throughout, I employed a user-centered approach, continuously validating and refining the design to deliver an intuitive and effective product.
The Problem
Many people around the world don’t have access to a safe and secure place to shelter, grow and share wealth, or the technical skill to achieve this.
The Goal
Volya aims to liberate people from difficult economic positions using globally trusted blockchain technology, in an easy to use web-based platform for people that don’t have a clue about blockchain or crypto with very low-tech skills. The product must make them feel in control and safe, and through protocols like arbitrage, trading, and loaning, help users grow their financial assets.
The Process
RESEARCH
By conducting user interviews I was able to put together personas and identify the needs such as it being easy to use, educational and trustworthy. In parallel I conducted stakeholder interviews and defined the core functionalities that would use peer to peer technology and a dollar-backed cryptocurrency.
DEFINING & DESIGNING THE PRODUCT
After having extensive conversations with our very talented developer to understand concepts like arbitrage, staking and trading in a cryptocurrency world I was able to begin defining what it might look like. Starting with user flows, followed by information architecture, I was then able to put together the wireframes. Like any designer I seeked feedback at every step to validate what I was doing.
The Result
Collaborating with the team developer to understand technical requirements I designed a modular system that would adapt easily to any screen size. Once the wireframes were validated through prototype testing, we conducting an A/B testing with the look and feel. Once this was validated I moved onto the high fidelity mockups. As this was a responsive web-based app it needed to be responsive and clear. Clear navigation and 2-step authentication and constant feedback for trust and security was added and walkthroughs, feedback and positive communication to guide users through complicated concepts or tasks.
Takeaways
This project was my first experience with blockchain, and tackling something so complex and reducing it to something so simple to use was surprisingly something I really enjoyed. Volya used peer-to-peer tech and cryptocurrency for cross-border transfers—exciting but complex. While Bitcoin was already well-known, I hadn’t expected to dive so deeply into its mechanics. I had to quickly understand blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and trading, knowing that without this knowledge, designing a user-friendly platform would be impossible. It was definitely testing my brain power.
Our in-house developer built a test cryptocurrency and gave me a crash course in blockchain, covering arbitrage and staking. I dug into more research and, combined with user feedback, created simple walkthroughs with illustrations and an interface that helped even the least tech-savvy users feel confident using the platform. This taught me that as a designer you must understand the product through and through, like as you know your users.
"Cat demonstrated an ability to tackle the analytical aspects of design, setting her apart as an insightful thinker. Cat has a skill for deciphering complex systems, which allowed her to develop user-centric designs that were not only aesthetic but also highly functional and intuitive. Cat would be an asset to any organisation looking to enhance its user experience and interface design capabilities."
– Hasan Chaaban, Agency Directory, KOLAPS
Product Design + Illustration
