- Role: UX/UI Designer (End-to-end)
- Scope: Research, user flows, wireframes, UI design, prototyping
- Product: Digital wallet for payments and rewards
AppCoins Wallet sat inside a gaming ecosystem that offered users real value: crypto rewards on every purchase, 15× higher returns on select titles, and instant top-ups across 400+ apps.
The infrastructure worked. The experience didn’t communicate that.
Users completed purchases and immediately wondered: did that go through? Where are my coins? Why didn’t the reward apply? High-stakes moments with no clear answers.
I redesigned the core payment and rewards experience — not to make it simpler, but to make its reliability visible.
Trust isn’t built at registration. It’s built at the first payment.
The wallet home prioritizes clarity and next actions, reducing cognitive load from the first interaction.
The Problem
AppCoins runs on crypto infrastructure. Most users don’t know — or care.
What they care about: did I get what I paid for? Is my balance right? Did the reward apply?
The original experience answered none of these clearly. Purchase confirmations didn’t show value. Rewards were scattered across unrelated flows. Balance changes were opaque. Every ambiguous moment trained users to expect unreliability.
The problem wasn’t the technology. It was that the system communicated technically instead of communicating trust.
- The onboarding introduces the wallet’s value by focusing on clarity, trust, and familiar mental models, rather than technical concepts.
Design Decisions
The goal wasn’t to expose how the system works — it was to make the right actions obvious. That meant reducing noise, guiding decisions, and making every state easy to understand.
Hide infrastructure, not outcome
We removed blockchain terminology from the primary flow entirely. Users see what they paid and what they got — not how it was processed. The system's complexity became invisible; its reliability became legible.
Prioritize forward motion over information
Every screen was designed for the next action, not to document the current state. Progress drives trust faster than explanation. Users who move forward feel confident; users who read status messages feel uncertain.
Reduce cognitive load at the payment moment
Payment screens were stripped to essentials: amount, bonus, confirm. The system handled everything else. Fewer choices meant faster decisions and less doubt — exactly where hesitation is most costly.
Make every transaction state legible
Loading, processing, success, and failure each got distinct visual states with plain-language labels. Users never had to guess what just happened — which meant they stopped assuming the worst.
Consistent patterns across the ecosystem
Shared component language across all integrated apps removed the "is this real?" moment users felt when switching contexts. When the wallet looked the same everywhere, users trusted it everywhere.
Payment Flow
The payment screen is where trust is earned or lost. Price, bonus, promo codes, rewards — the original experience put all of it in front of users at once and asked them to figure out the value themselves.
They didn't. They hesitated. And hesitation became drop-off.
What changed- Clear value breakdown before confirmation — price, bonus, and rewards shown together, calculated by the system
- Single primary action: one-tap purchase. Everything else moved out of the critical path
- Rewards integrated into the payment moment, not discoverable separately afterward
- Post-purchase confirmation shows what you got, not just that the transaction completed
Advanced controls and flexibility were reduced in the primary flow. Power users could find them — but most users never needed them, and removing them lowered hesitation for everyone.
ResultUsers understand what they're committing to before they tap confirm. That single change accounts for most of the 32% drop-off reduction.
Rewards
Users earned rewards with every purchase. Most didn't know.
The rewards system existed — promo codes, campaigns, referral bonuses — but it had no center of gravity. Users found rewards by accident or not at all. A system that should have driven retention was functionally invisible.
We redesigned rewards as a progression model: one place, visible progress, clear stakes.
What changed- Centralized all reward entry points into a single hub — one place to understand your status
- Made progression visible: spend → unlock → grow. Users could see where they were heading
- Added urgency to active promotions with live states and clear expiry
- Elevated referral from a buried menu item to a first-class growth mechanic
We shifted from scattered incentives to a loop that reinforces itself with every transaction. Rewards had to feel earned, not stumbled upon.
ResultUsers stopped reacting to promotions and started anticipating rewards. Rewards became a reason to return — not just a marketing feature that appeared occasionally.
- Rewards act as behavioral infrastructure — reinforcing transaction confidence, increasing repeat usage, and strengthening ecosystem retention.
Key Insight
Users don't evaluate wallets. They evaluate moments.
The purchase confirmation screen isn't just a receipt — it's where trust is earned or lost. Design for that moment, and the whole system benefits.
Clarity beats capability at the decision moment
Users chose wallets they understood over wallets with more features. When the system communicated clearly, conversion followed. When it didn’t, even successful transactions felt uncertain — and users didn’t come back.
The first payment defines the relationship
First-time transactions had outsized influence on long-term retention. A smooth, confident first experience set the pattern users repeated. A hesitant one created reluctance that compounded over time.
Reducing decisions is a design feature, not a limitation
Stripping the payment flow to essentials felt like a trade-off. It wasn’t. Users moved faster, with less doubt, and returned more often. Simplicity that respects the user earns their trust.
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