Ledger Live Application Redesign
An environmentally motivated redesign of the Ledger Live Application
Assignment Background
This project was geared around using an integrative sustainable interaction design framework to redesign an existing product. The main goal of our product redesign was to leave a positive impact on the environment as opposed to directly solving user pain points. This distinction led us to take a slightly different route with our design process.
Problem Summary
A relevant technology with many negative environmental impacts that captivated my team was cryptocurrency. The usage of cryptocurrency is highly energy-intensive, and it has been routinely criticized for this. Bitcoin is the most popular type of cryptocurrency. It produces 36.9 megatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, which is comparable to New Zealand. My team and I asked ourselves this question: How can we make the usage of cryptocurrency more sustainable?
Cryptocurrency Background
Here I will provide a high-level overview of the important components of cryptocurrency. I will focus on Bitcoin as it is the most popular cryptocurrency.
What is cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency in which transactions are validated in a decentralized manner. This is different than traditional banking because there is no central authority; for Bitcoin, a blockchain is used to record transactions.
What is the Blockchain?
The Blockchain is a digital ledger that is copied and distributed across all the computers on the blockchain, also called nodes. Recording transactions in such a manner is decentralized.
What are some cryptocurrency processes?
Mining:
The process of cryptocurrency mining creates new digital coins. Earning these coins requires computers or mining rigs (hardware devices used to mine cryptocurrency) to solve complex puzzles, this process is known as cryptographic hashing. Mining is extremely energy intensive because the computer is essentially "brute forcing" combinations until it finds the right one and produces a block. The first "miner" to find the solution gets the coin as a reward.
Transacting:
A transaction entails an individual either sending or receiving cryptocurrency. Once a transaction is completed, at least 50% of nodes or more must work algorithmically to approve it to the blockchain.
Context
Advanced Topics in User Centered Design (HCDE 418)*
Role
UX Research, UI Design, Usability Testing, Market Research
Duration
Spring Semester 2022 (10 weeks)
Team
Life Cycle Analysis
Before choosing a product to redesign, we wanted to understand cryptocurrency’s impact on the environment on a more granular scale so we could pinpoint areas to improve. In order the execute this, we created a conceptual framework of a Bitcoin Lifecycle, found below, and analyzed the various corresponding environmental impacts. We solely focused on Bitcoin during this initial research stage as it is the most popular coin.
Here are the stages we created and the main takeaways from each stage:
Requirements
Mining Equipment Manufacturing —> 4000 Kilo Tons of Fossil Fuel emissions
Mining
All mining operations in 2019 à 22.9 —>40 Megatons of CO2 emitted
Transactions
One Bitcoin Transaction —> 272 g of e-waste produced; 365.5 kg of CO2 emitted
Associated E-Waste
Disposal of ASIC Mining Devices and semiconductor chips —> 30.7 metric tons
We asked ourselves which stages were actionable, and which were not. Manufacturing of mining devices and the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies were out of the scope of what could be tackled with a product. We decided to focus on changing transacting behaviors of cryptocurrency users. We chose to redesign an application called Ledger Live.
What is ledger live
Ledger Live is a companion application to a Ledger Nano hardware wallet. With ledger live, users can check on their cryptocurrency assets and transact with cryptocurrency. There are over 1.5 million monthly users of the Ledger Live application. In the video below, my teammate Jesse walks through the Ledger Live interface. We used the video during our usability testing Stage.
Initial Project Concept and Goal
Our goal through this project was behavior change. We wanted Ledger Live users to choose to interact with more sustainable coins due to our redesign. We wanted to finalize a high-level project concept before we entered the research stage in order to get concrete feedback from users. Below are the original Ledger Live screens along with the changes we planned on implementing.
Portfolio Screen
We wanted to create a separate column to show the sunk environmental costs of Cryptocurrencies in the users’ portfolio.
Transaction Screen(Amount)
We wanted to enable a users to view the amount of CO2 that would be emitted by completing the corresponding transaction.
Impact Assessment
Before moving onto researching, we were tasked with quantifying the current environmental impacts of various cryptocurrencies and estimating the prospective environmental impact of our Ledger Live redesign. By using publicly available data, we complied a table of the mining and transaction impact for various cryptocurrencies; this table is to the right.
Through the usage of the cryptocurrency sub-reddit and various statistics about Ledger Live users, we estimated that our redesign would emit 141 mT (metric tons) less Carbon dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) per day and 51,465 mT less CO2e per year. All the assumption made, and sources used in this calculation are detailed in the document below.
User Research Plan
We conducted 6 semi-structured interviews and a google survey receiving 49 responses. Our target users were people with a financial stake in cryptocurrency over the age of 18. An important step in our interview process was to ask users about their prospective behavior change in response to our project concept.
Key Research Findings
To identify trends in our research, we created a thematic analysis of our 6 interviews and computed a statistical summary of our survey responses using python.
1) Crypto Currency Users skew towards considering themselves environmentally conscious
2) Crypto Currency Users are generally knowledgeable about the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency
3) There were positive interpretations of our solution however, for most users, our redesign would not translate into action
4) Users care about the display of environmental impact information
Making sense of our Findings:
From finding 3, it was evident that we needed to further incentivize environmentally conscious behavior with our design. We decided to implement a slight gamification of environmentally conscious behavior into our first prototype. We did this through the implementation of awardable and retractable Environmental Points, which are based odd the frequency of transactions completed by the user and the coins used to complete those transactions.
In order to address finding 4, we decided to display the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency assets in relatable terms (ex. Miles driven or hours flown) instead of a metric unit.
Lo-Fidelity Prototype
For our Lo-Fidelity wireframes, we executed our initial project concept and incorporated our research findings. Our prototype was designed over screenshots of the original application in GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) and Figma. We could only prototype two pages in the Send feature because if we navigated beyond that page, actual cryptocurrency would have needed to be sent. Below are details pertaining to each feature implemented.
Siddarth Kamath
Jesse Walling
Isha Narayanan
Expand for a better view of the prototype!
Usability Testing
We conducted three usability tests and an affinity analysis, shown to the right, on the transcripts. We made five main usability changes to our application which can be found below. In addition, all the interviewees expressed interest in the information that was displayed in our Ledger Live redesign. Furthermore, 2 out of 3 of our interviewees expressed a prospective cryptocurrency behavior change in response to our redesign.
1)Added Elaboration on New Features
Some interviewees were confused by the Environmental Points and the CO2e pop-ups. We added elaboration on these features through additional pop-ups for clarity.
2) Tab Placement- Portfolio Balance and Sustainability Data
One interviewee expressed not seeing the “Sustainability Data” tab when first viewing the Portfolio. To mitigate this problem, we moved the “Portfolio Balance” tab and the “Sustainability Data” tab closer together.
3) Environmental Points Percentile Pop-Up Bar size
One interviewee expressed that the bar indicating the user’s percentile on the Environmental Points Percentile pop-up was difficult to see as it blended in with the graph. In our final design, we made this bar much larger.
4) Smaller Units (Kg instead of Metric Tons)
One interviewee was confused about the unit mT(Mega Ton); due to this insight, we decided to use Kilograms for all units instead of a mixture of Metric Tons and Kilograms. We implemented this change in the Portfolio Page and the Transaction/Send flow.
5) CO2e Impact Popup Numbers
We got feedback from users that it would be more impactful to display numbers instead of “negligible” for very small emissions on the CO2e pop-up.
Final Project Report
Our classroom project culminated at this stage, before the final design, in a Final Report. In this report we detailed our design process and future steps.
High-Fidelity Mocks
Our project culminated in an in interactive desktop application. Our redesigned Ledger Live interface combines cryptocurrency consumer education with the incentivization of environmentally friendly behaviors.
Expand for a better view of the prototype!
Reflection
Define the artifacts you want to produce before entering the Design Process
This was my first class in which the design process was unstructured, there were only three deliverables. This was particularly challenging because I wasn’t sure what high-yield artifacts our team should choose to produce. We wasted time debating what design artifacts to produce when we were already in the design process. In future unstructured projects, I will develop a plan and rationale before entering the design process.
Understanding and Compassion within a Team
Both of my group members were seniors with only one quarter remaining. They had a lot of responsibilities and commitments outside of the schoolwork in this class. I understood these commitments and tried to pick up extra project work where I could. Overall, I valued the wisdom and advice that my teammates were able to give me!