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Bank-backed Crypto Wallet
Thurgood Marshall College Fund x Truist | Innovation Challenge

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Introduction

Team Dynamics

UX Designer collaborating with 4 teammates with backgrounds in finance, public speaking, marketing, and product management. Additionally, a Truist UX Designer acted as our coach.

My Skills

  • UI Design

  • Research (Market and Competitive) 

  • UX Strategy

  • User Flows

  • Wireframing

Constraints

  • Time (2 days)

  • Lack of cryptocurrency and finance knowledge

Context

Digital Currency- Currency is getting digitized. On top of it, machine learning and artificial intelligence are becoming integral to core product experiences (such as personalization, prediction, voice). As a result of thesee two trends, how do you see your world-changing in the coming years?

Problem Statement

Design a financial product/service that addresses the needs for this world and back your decisions with data.

Research and Ideation: Understanding Crypto and Finances

When beginning to research we acknowledged we had a lot of ground to cover so we split the research into 4 parts:  

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  1. Truist Assessment

  2. Current Product/Service Offerings (Me)

  3. 2020 Quarterly Reports and Earnings

  4. Trends, Technologies, and Challenges in Digital Currencies (Me)

Then we came together to discuss what we found and identified common patterns and well as tallk through some questions we had.

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After voting on and talking through ideas, we weighed thte pros and cons and came to a revised idea: a cryptocurrency wallet.

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This is where I started to create a visual competitor analysis so I coud better understand the UI for such products.

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After starting to work on the business model canvas, our mentor suggested we split into 2 groups: design and business, so I could start working on the prototype and the visual convincing of the judges of our idea.

Design: UI/UX Analysis and Understanding Crypto Wallets

Summarizing Idea and Story

Before starting I knew I had to fully understand the features and capabilities and what story they were going to tell in the presentation. Therefore I finalized this information with my team and inserted this into my Figma file to keep the idea consistent all throughout the design proceess.

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Truist Digital Banking Simulator

Since I was essentially creating a cryptocurrency wallet feature in the Truist mobile app I had to gain a better understanding of the Truist mobile app, so I could get an idea into how the idea could seamlessly fit onto the platform. I started by viewing Truist's digital banking simulators, particularly the transfer and payments to see how crypto could be integrated.

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Then I took screenshots of each screen to gain a simple overview of the process and start to compile wireframes to inspire my designs.

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Inspiration: Blockfi | buy, sell, and earn cryptocurrency

At this point I had an idea of how the idea could fit into the Truist platform, I needeed to get a real idea into how crypto wallets and platforms actually work. 

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One of my teammates who were familiar with cryptocurrency suggested I look at Blockfi, which is a mobile platform where you can buy, sell, and earn cryptocurrency.

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You don't have to read the text but just understand I watched tutorial videos, took screenshots, and organized the user flow sort of like a tree that had main branches that split into smaller ones.

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Next, I looked at both the Truist mobile simulation and the Blockfistarted to identify what areas of the journey could properly support the idea by applying colored circles that correlated with that action. This made sure that what I was designing stayed true to our user and business goals.

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It's the Final Countdown!

Then while utilizing a screenshot from the Truist mobile app I was able to create a seamless mobile app experience based on the Truist visual design system. The overall experience will give the user the opportunity to understand crypto and be safely guided to engage in this new currency.

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In the end, my team and I earned first place 🥇 out of 6 teams in the TMCF x Trust Innovation Challenge! Below is the prototype video and list of actions the user takes in the app!

User Actions:

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  1. Transfer digital assets into Truist wallet

  2. Send digital assets using key/ QR code

  3. Create high-yield savings account for crypto assets

  4. Use assets as collateral for loans

What did I learn?

  • Improvizing and implementing new methods are needed to tackle new and complex concepts

  • I want to always learn and grow more always as both a designer and problem solver. Wherever my career takes me I want to always work on a team and for a company that will challenge me as this innovation challenge did

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© 2023 by Brandi Nichols

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