User Experience in Web3: Building Products for Real Humans | Panel

that we hello yeah the original message is that we really wanted to build Tech Solutions and we were talking about banking the unbanked and we wanted to you know like create freedom and transparency and we've gotten stuck in this really interesting hamster wheel of all sorts of l1s all sorts of Dev tooling and we still haven't solved things like remittances and the things that we kind of talked about to you know like start this whole um space off so today we've got a really interesting group of people coming at it from different aspects to talk about what should the user experience be what like what are we really building for here and we've got some different takes on it so Francisco you want to kick us off and just give us some high level of like what you've been building and what you think about this yeah sure so request Network I I would say it's like a hybrid between the other companies here which coinbase which is a bit more centralized and FWB which is fully decentralized um so request network is a is a protocol that allows you to add data to your blockchain transactions and we do that by storing this data uh in a decentralized way so on ipfs and that's it back on chain I'm not going to get into the details of it but allows you to create uh somewhat of uh decentralized invoices and receipts for blockchain payments which allows uh the fin fin final industry and companies from the traditional Finance to come inside uh the web3 space and allows them to have their accounts managed in a more correct way and be more compliant um that's basically what we've been building on request Network and there's a plot twist so we'll come back to that but Greg what are you building uh I oversee a dow called friend with benefits or FWB shout out to the members in the audience um we are the largest uh web 3 social network and our mission is super simple we use culture to drive the adoption of emerging Tech so excited to chat about that today and Kelvin everyone Hi everyone my name isin Sor hey everyone uh name is Kelvin like the temperature uh nice to meet you guys so I work for coinbase specifically right now I'm on the institutional usdc team but I used to work on coinbase wallet so uh really happy to be here to chat about you know high level what we're thinking when we think about user experience and and things like that so the thinking and bringing uh traditional Finance the Nexus with culture and web 3 and a platform that has onboarded more Americans than arguably any other is to really come at it from a different perspective and I had a great debate with a Community member Deacon the other day about do we actually need to build web 3 tooling for the rest of the world and and kind of obvious skate the web 3 part of it and his argument was that no this Tech matters as it is we don't need to build web 2.5 and hide it behind the curtain like people should want to come here they should want to opt in and use these tools and there's a learning curve for that my argument was different but I would love to get your take on it I mean the answer is no I think that this is a really concentrated audience of people but the space is almost saturated for this room like I think you know you might choose a different L1 or you might move to an L2 or an easier but I think it's the benefits of the technology that people actually care about but it has to maybe be 10% harder than current technology but 12% is going to have a steep cliff and steep fall off so most people like it but it's too too much for them so I disagree for any it depends who you're talking to to this audience yes they care about to anyone outside of it it needs to be way easier and way simpler for people to also have the benefits but then integrate it into their daily lives I think I have a disagree I have a different view I think that uh this maintaining the value is important but web three will not grow if we don't build the right tooling around it so that provides a good user experience and that abstracts most of the web three components so account abstracting is a thing because regular people per se don't want to deal with wallets seed phrases stuff like that uh they don't want to have to sign things when they they are using a website so I do think that the the the goal here and it's a it's a very difficult road because you have to kind of uh manage how to incorporate at the values of web 3 that are really important decentral decentralization transparency even efficiency because web3 is very efficient in in in some points that web 2 is not um into a good user experience and you'll end up having these tools built but uh with users not knowing that they are using web3 not knowing what's really behind the scenes like in every other Tech that we use um but in the long term taking the benefit of using the the web three uh technology behind it yeah I think I have a blended view of the two um when we think about you know unboarding the next billion people there's no doubt going to be people who don't know how to use the tech as well as everyone else um don't want to pick on my mom but for example my mom I tried to teach her how to use uh a self- custodial wallet and she's confused I think she probably have the app deleted at this point um but she was confused she didn't really know how to do it and there would be no hope trying to teach her how to use like def5 protocols and and things like that at least at the current moment um and we want that technology to get to a point where every single human in the world is using web 3 versions of things or or the web 3 be onboard into the web 3 world but I think it does take a lot of familiarity uh and baby steps uh may it be know web 2.5 before we can get to a place where every single human in the world is comfortable being on chain being in the web 3 world well and to that I think it's kind of a yes and right like maybe we do have this deep layers here and we come together and we nerd out and your mom has something that she doesn't have to worry about it with and my argument with Deacon was that you know as Marshall mclan said we shape our tools but our tools shape us as well and when you think about the cell phone in your hand and how much that has changed the way that you communicate with people if we can get transparent and honest Tech in the hands of people what is that going to start doing thinking about who is my neighbor who do I share value with does it have to go through a gatekeeper like Visa or can I interact with you guys directly and how does that change your ideas of community so uh I'd like to like shift it a little bit to talk about some of the stuff that's happening with FWB and the cultural side because you guys are building you know for a broader audience but FWB works with people who are right brainers like this is a harder thing to build something that's sticky when we're talking about like getting out of Discord and what have you experienced and what's some of the feedback on web3 Tech that you get I mean I think where we really win is where we take whatever I mean there's like 400 vendors here I mean if you can't see it it's like endless Seas of people these are just tools these are like and I I would say that like to your point I think we've reached a point where we have great hammers we have great cement we have great wiring but what are we using it for like what is the actual point of any of this of any of this stuff here and the ones that win our culture I'm looking at base behind us base Hunt is a arguably a home run because it married really easy Tech with the wallet with culture and you're going to see people doing it so I think for us where we see wins or we're actually most interested in is the people that want to take the great tooling they did and then actually run it through a cultural lens for adoption that's the only place that I think growth is actually going to happen I don't think if if the financialization of everything was going to bring everyone to the space we'd have way more people your mom would be a dgen it'd be awesome but I think it's only within culture that we're going to see that big adoption and so that's the area that we like to play in and that's where we see the the best results Kelvin you want to add on to that yeah I think I think I agree with with everything here um I I think you know when we think about web 3 it is the next generation of the internet right like we want everyone to be there one day so yeah I agree with you everything you say um you know I I think what you guys are building is also really amazing you want your mom to be Jen I I it would be nice if she tells me you know that's uh like this new thing like check this out and and not me telling her all the time I think it is nice that we can have our roles reversed once in a while well and Francisco the plot twist on what's going on with request network is that you guys have really started focusing on developing economies so talk to us about going from you know kind of an invoicing platform to helping Bank the unbanked yeah so request network is is deep on the financial side but uh it's deep it's deep on the decentralized finance and um we want to try to create something that's very inclusive uh and decentralized on um and efficient but uh that allows um the the the the everyone to to join and to make like a get access to these tools that uh right now are more difficult to get access to you need I mean there's like two two 3 million unbanked in the world right and with crypto being a a um a bank account in your pocket this this is possible uh the thing is you need to convince the these financial institutions or create new financial institutions on top of the chain and that's what we are about we are trying to create the the data layer that will allow to have Financial context that's owned by you it's decentralized uh and that people can build on top of the new the new Finance of the future we believe at request that the financial system will be on chain and we are trying to create the tools to make that happen faster well and I'm curious so you guys are just as much a part of this as we are who here thinks keep web 3 web 3 and you have to like come join us here raise your hand I Like It Hot take who here says we need to make this way easier and obvious SK it in the background people who can't see it's everyone and I can I just say for your story like the unbanked is such a massive story for web 3 but I think that the way that you tell that story is through culture I think that it's very hard to tell people just like to get them to care straight straightforward about unbank I think you need to make something way more compelling about how this opens up why this space opens up and I again I I'm going to just say it a million times it's through the cultural way of that type of narrative and storytelling that's going to get people to care it's not going to just be like it's an untapped audience explain what you mean by culture word say double click on culture what do you mean I just mean like if I were to think about the way that I would tell that story it wouldn't be like going to be like here is an audience that you know we can have access to that you know is an untapped audience I would tell the story of what does it mean to be unbanked what resources are not given to you like what does it mean to be a refugee or to not have access to things that we all take for granted and tell that story in a way that's like very compelling almost like traditional marketing and then the solve for that is actually web 3 because you win them with emotion not with just like a straightforward pitch definitely uh maybe I passed myself wrong but definitely it wasn't my point to see to tell this as a a segment of the market that we are targeting because we are not we are actually just building we are open source we just build infrastructure and our goal is to build infrastructure structure that will allow these people not to be unbanked because products will be built on top but the unbanked is a part of it we we believe that Finance should be more inclusive it should be more decentralized so bringing bringing these financial institutions on top of the Chain by showing them the the the the improved efficiency that they can get it will open up the the the system itself they will become more more decentralized by coming on top of the chain they will become more transparent and they will become more in inclusive so my point is uh in order I believe that in order to bring make this happen there needs to be incentives for for for the the players that are building things to come in and to do things because I'm not saying culture is not important but culture it's not a motivation enough unfortunately I strongly disagree I I think I really like the the point about culture um and specifically thinking about a lot of the Technologies and apps we use these days you likely heard it from your friends and family first and that's why you you went and downloaded it may it be you know social media apps or or a certain phone or like you know things like that I think that's one thing that's that's missing a little bit in the in the web 3 space that that kind of element of delight that makes people want to go hey like friends like show like check this out um like this is amazing this changes lives like get this app or or get this you know protocol whatever um right now I think we're missing that element there's a lot of projects and and things within the the web 3 space where it's like a technical Delight where if you understand the technology behind it you'll be amazed by it but um they're not necessarily more of like the common you know Delight that I think people are used to with web 2 you know picking up maybe an iPhone for the first time and thinking oh wow this just works you know 10 20 years ago um I think I think a lot of that element is missing with web 3 and I think we we're slowly getting there and there's a lot of very exciting technology that's going to make the the general public um excited to share things with their friends and family and their groups and and yeah tell us why why is it missing is it because ux and web 3 is just really hard is it because we're missing something we're not thinking about it right we're still kind of in our own little Echo chamber and we're okay with it are we missing daps like why I I do think in certain areas the the ux still has a lot of improvements but I also think that fundamentally being onboarded onto web 3 is kind of a change in mindset for example just to to think about self custodia wallet for example it's not what you're used to when you think about you know I have a Gmail account and I can use this Gmail account everywhere to make an account on all the different web 3 uh sorry web 2 platforms I don't think it's not exactly the same idea with like a wallet and I think in wallets there's like multiple different accounts in the wallet like there it's a lot of twisting the way you're thinking about how you interact with the space and you don't you know you don't download an app you you most likely be going to a specific appap and then just like integrating your your uh um wallet with it so it's like a a change in mindset that isn't easy and I think someone mentioned like a a growth curve you know you have to learn how to do it before you're you're web 3 proficient and web 3 native and I I think that transition can definitely be smoother with better ux um and I think again back to the baby step points like we need baby steps to get people comfortable to be a fully unchain kind of person um yeah love to hear everyone's thought I I feel like there's probably maybe some disagreement here um yeah I I do think there are the there is still a problem with the ux on web 3 and the problem is one of the biggest problems is that right right now if you want to keep things uh easy to use you need to kind of abdicate a bit of decentralization and I think that we can improve that we can keep things decentralized with good uh user experience another thing is that web3 is very specific and it's very spec it has very specific things that are not normal for a traditional user uh the wallet as you mentioned is something that's hard to to uh get by and the transactions right they they it takes time you see when you use a web3 product you can see that it takes time and and what happens on the blockchain needs to be very transparent for the user right you need to have all these messaging saying your transaction is being processed um you need to be able to confirm when that happens or try to explain at all the steps that you are making to make the user secure right because the user knows that when when you go to a new app on web 3 even if you are experienced you always think uh am I going to connect my wallet here am I going to R click on this button to run this transaction so it's important for you to on the user experience side to show what is happening on your product because that brings a lot of trust and and that these little details will matter when uh when uh and will be improved in the in the in the times to come I think we're just still stuck in talking about tools I don't I mean when I asked Shannon what the purpose of this was you were like it's three four years on we still haven't built like a killer consumer app I think warcast is probably the closest that any of us and there's a reason why people are so excited about it cuz it feels the closest to anything else in the real world but we're just talking about like Identity or wallets like we're not actually talking about the things are supposed to sit on top of that that captures people like hearts and minds and Imagination so until we can just talk about those products we're going to be stuck in people feeling joyless about a lot of this stuff totally okay final question you have a magic wand what one thing in web 3 would you improve shift fix I can KCK us off if you're not ready a just a second so to improve I would say user experience is the main thing to improve but but say one thing like we now have things mhm account obstruction I would say fast forward us 5 years to where we're having a ton of consumer products and seeing what the world looks like living on top of web 3 rails uh I'm going cheat a little bit I'm not going to talk about specific product I think I I hope that we can get to a place where when I talk to people about crypto their first reaction is not just oh prices or I want to make money in XYZ but it's like oh yeah I use this really cool thing that changed my life this tool um you know that's that's built on top of web3 technology that really improved my my living qualities and things like that so I think hoping we can get to that place one day is is something that I think would be great I thank you for that and and mine is that people would recognize that we have options right like speaking for Americans right now we feel like we're stuck in a a political system with no options we've been stuck in a financial system a lot of us act like inflation is the weather and we can't change it it just is I would love for people to know maybe this is too complex maybe it's too speculative you don't have to opt in but you do have a choice there's somewhere else to go so with that we will say thank you very much guys enjoy your e Denver we'll see you [Applause]