Working with a company that is breaking into the web3 world, you realize that there are many things that are not created yet for the Web3 user. One of the things that was missing was a hosting service specifically designed for Web3.
Nerd United and their partners (brands) sold nodes that needed to be hosted to work. We directed people to 3rd parties to host their nodes.
*a node is a blockchain software that generates tokens that can be traded in for cryptocurrency
If Nerd United made its own hosting software, we could claim revenue our users gave to 3rd party hosting.
Hypothesis: If we simplified the 27 step hosting process, user retention and node sales would increase.
I used Maze.co and surveyed internally and within crypto discord communities. It had 7 total questions. I was able to get various opinions, pain points, and information about potential competitors.
We developed some insights from the responses we received.
With the Maze.co responses, I developed 3 main user types of node hosting:
"The node software is so unreliable on my personal computer and I would rather the node client just be running 24/7 and me not have to worry about it."
- Blockchain Wizard
"Was intimidated by the VPS process. I work everyday so I might as well just run it on my computer."
- Blockchain Novice
"I'm not even sure what any of this is yet! New to this game."
- Eager Rookie
For people who currently own nodes inside the company, 67% were using Vultr as a hosting service.
People who own one node tend to run it on their personal computer and not pay for a hosting service.
Current process of hosting a node on a VPS were reported as "unreliable" and "intimidating"
Being the lead designer, I was in charge of the branding. I took inspiration from a car dashboard to simulate speed, information, and a call to the idea that this is an engine for you.
Used Jeff Patton's method for user story mapping to help develop the user flow for our 3 user groups. Key elements that we needed to keep was the ability to upload multiple brands of nodes at once and the ability to see the status of the hosted node.
Drafted a dashboard that allowed for users to see:
Due to responses about reliability, I drafted in a notification system for users to get updated alerts on the status of their hosting.
The detail view would also have more information for the users who wanted to be more informed about how long their node has been online, what actions they could take on it, and if there are any pending updates they need to take. This was hidden in a drop down so that the additional data wouldn't overwhelm the already information ladened user. Wanted to keep an overall simple and straightforward presentation of information.
In the wireframing process, I had two different designs for the status tag that I couldn't decide between. I wanted to convey the most important feature of Node Engine, the status of the hosted node, but also keep the sleekness of our branding.
With Maze.co, I polled internally with 41 employees to see which screen they liked better.
After looking at each screen for 5 seconds, they were asked which image they preferred and why.
With a split vote, the results came out that 58% of users preferred image 1. Reasonings included "I liked the minimalistic look" and that the dot color stood out to them more.
Image 2 received 42% of the votes and some people preferred the badges to be larger because it was easier for them to see. However, one comment received really stood out to me.
"I'm colorblind and the colors were easier to read on the 2nd image."
- one of THREE colorblind respondents
I totally overlooked accessibility to our colorblind users. Quickly, I realized that I would need to make a revised status badge that our colorblind users could see. Utilized larger, free standing icons that could display the status without reliance on color. This new updated look also implemented the minimal look that 52% of users enjoyed.
When presented with the first draft of the dashboard, two things were realized:
Due to time and user confusion, the cards at the top were omitted. A notification system would be much farther down the line.
For the main dashboard MVP, I needed to identify and highlight the key points of information for a user. The most important things a user wants to do when coming to this screen is to see the status of their hosted nodes and upload more nodes to host.
Flow change
Flow was changing from uploading multiple brands of nodes at once to one brand at a time due to tech limitation.
Limited actions
Individual action could not be taken on a hosting instance. Users were directed to cancel their subscriptions if there were any bugs or errors on an instance.
I moved the "new hosting" button to be at the top of the dashboard for hierarchy purposes. Users were going to heavily utilizing it now to finish deploying all their nodes.
I added the “cancel subscription” button for users to quickly abort and start over their hosting. High on hierarchy because that’s how often users encountered bugs.
After MVP launched, I polled internal users their thoughts.
Positive reactions:
People with one single node (Blockchain novice user group) were happy with their experience
Negative reactions:
People with multiple nodes (Blockchain Wizards) found it hard to navigate. The naming structure was too generic, made it difficult to navigate and differentiate which node from what. Our users could also not take an action on a specific node and if they wanted to, they would have to delete every hosted node and reupload them.
Filter and sort
Our Blockchain Wizards (users who owned multiple nodes) expressed the most frustration with MVP.
Finding a specific instance was difficult due to the generic naming system and inability to search.
A filter and sort feature was designed to quickly select a specific instance or group of instances for our users.
If you wanted to delete, restart, or update a node, you had to cancel your whole subscription and delete ALL your instances.
For our Blockchain Wizards, this was an excruciating task.
First thing to implement was the ability to delete a single hosting instance.
For people who want to delete multiple instances of one brand, it was time consuming to individually select each instance and hit delete.
In combination with the filter and mass action feature, a user could complete this goal in a minute.
What went well?
Flow was changing from uploading multiple brands of nodes at once to one brand at a time due to tech limitation.
I moved the "new hosting" button to be at the top of the dashboard for hierarchy purposes. Users were going to heavily utilizing it now to finish deploying all their nodes.
What did not go well?
Individual action could not be taken on a hosting instance. Users were directed to cancel their subscriptions if there were any bugs or errors on an instance.
I added the “cancel subscription” button for users to quickly abort and start over their hosting. High on hierarchy because that’s how often users encountered bugs.
Before Node Engine, the estimated amount of time a user need to host a node would be 60 minutes. With Node Engine, the average time a user needs is 15 minutes.
Node Engine simplified hosting from 27 steps to 3 steps.
Node Engine was the first product of Nerd United that got to revenue.
$1,500,000
yearly revenue
2,801+
nodes hosted
30,980
hours saved
Due to possible legal troubles with the name Node Engine, a redesign was greenlit for Fleet.
Fleet would be mobile friendly, update the UI, and implement the original userflow and features proposed for Node Engine.
Fleet was started in August 2023 and cancelled in November 2023 due to... legal troubles with the name Fleet.
You can check out how Fleet went in my case study.
