At the beginning of the internet, all online applications had bad user experiences. It sometimes took minutes for pages to load, and many websites started as just walls of text and pictures.
Due to this, and many other factors, Web 1.0 wasn’t the biggest thing in the world. People didn’t abandon physical businesses because a digital alternative existed. They only started to abandon physical businesses for online ones when website functionalities increased.
As user experience improved, the internet grew. And with better user experience came even better innovation. It was almost like this circle of improvement. As apps got better UI/UX, more people used them. And as people used them, the developers were able to use that feedback and data to create even better UI/UX.
This could be the path that Web 3.0 takes. However, for the ecosystem to take this path, a few things need to change.
First of all, founders and developers need to see user experience as a vital part of their product. UI/UX design needs to be prioritized by developers, and it needs to be handed over to specialists, not generalists.
Secondly, founders and developers need to come to the understanding that user experience doesn’t need to be revolutionary to work. Sure, Web 3.0 in itself is disruptive, but its UI/UX model doesn’t need to be.
However, it would be wrong to assume that Web 3.0’s UI/UX issues are just limited to design decisions. While good design choices can alleviate some of these problems, other more fundamental problems just can’t be solved by better design.
For example, how do developers create a reasonably scam-free environment for people in DeFi? How can they make it easier for people to transact on different chains without going through the hassle of exchanges and bridges? How can designers make adding a network to a Metamask wallet a one-button action?
These are all issues that are intrinsic to the way Web 3.0 works at the moment. They aren’t designing problems — they are engineering problems. Unfortunately, there’s the belief that this is the cost to pay for participating in Web 3.0. The truth is that very few people are willing to pay that cost.
That’s why an important part of solving Web 3.0’s UI/UX problem would be to solve these engineering issues. It won’t be easy, and it may take years of very hard work. But every stakeholder in Web 3.0 needs to understand that solving it is an important part of the Web 3.0 ecosystem going mainstream.
