The experience of creating and selling NFTs on OpenSea has three key friction points, argues Peter Ramsey, founder of UX consultancy, Built for Mars, in a new case study.
OpenSea is the world's first and largest peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs.
Firstly, there are no commonly preferable actionable routes at the stage where users are asked to add their NFT to a collection (a group of linked NFTs). Currently, a click into the empty state field yields the message, ‘no results’ – and there is no explanation as to which collections the new NFT can be added to. “It's evident that OpenSea haven't spent much time thinking about [actionable routes],” argues Ramsey.
Secondly, there are no context buffers to confirm once a collection has been made, and provide transitionary context – i.e., that the sub-task is complete, and users can get back to creating their NFT. Given the ‘task-switching’ that is required of users during the journey, context buffers would be particularly useful here. “OpenSea would probably find that this approach makes the process of creating an NFT and a collection feel more intuitive,” claims Ramsey.
The final key UX snag is the absence of an auto-save feature. Without it, the sub-task transition is difficult to manage, and puts users at risk of losing their work – especially when flow-breaking errors are encountered. “You never want [users] to have to re-enter information,” notes Ramsey. Indeed, auto-save can act as a “UX-airbag”.
With NFTs soaring in popularity this year, the UX of platforms such as OpenSea is increasingly being put under the microscope. Those with the most seamless customer journey will likely come out on top.