Making Crypto Legible

A Mobile Redesign Proposal That Won the Project — Pi Network
Challenge
Business Problem: A crypto mobile app with a massive user base had grown feature by feature without a cohesive design direction. The interface felt dated next to industry leaders, and the client needed a clear vision for the mobile roadmap — one compelling enough to justify investing in a full redesign.
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‍User Problem: The app served two very different audiences at once: crypto newcomers and advanced users. Core flows — onboarding, mining, checking balance, sending and receiving — were dense with text and small controls. Users struggled to answer two basic questions: how much do I have and what can I do next. In mining specifically, unclear rate, status, and time remaining left people unsure whether the app was even working.
My Contributions
As UX/UI Designer at 57 Blocks, I was responsible for:
  • Auditing the existing mobile experience, identifying friction across onboarding, home, mining, and wallet flows.
  • Benchmarking against industry leaders (Coinbase, OKX, and other major crypto wallets) to establish patterns users already expect.
  • Exploring divergent design directions — multiple navigation models, menu structures, and mining layouts — before converging on a recommendation.
  • Designing the redesign concepts for splash, welcome, home, and mining, in both light and dark modes.
  • Defining a visual system — color palette, typography, and component foundations — aligned with the brand.
  • Building the interactive prototype used to demo the proposal live.
  • Presenting the proposal to the client, articulating the rationale behind each decision — which secured buy-in and won the project.
Method
Key Decisions
Outcome
Learnings
From benchmark to buy-in
The proposal followed a structured path: understand the current product, learn from what the category has already solved, explore broadly, then converge on a defensible recommendation.
  • Audit — Reviewed the existing app flow by flow, mapping where users hesitate, misread, or drop off.
  • Benchmark — Studied leading crypto wallets to identify the patterns users already carry into the app. Rather than inventing from scratch, the redesign meets established expectations where it counts and differentiates where it matters.
  • Divergent exploration — Explored many directions per problem: long menus, flyouts, tab navigation, segmented controls, and icon cards, each in light and dark mode. Breadth first, so the recommendation could be argued rather than asserted.
  • Convergence — Narrowed to a single direction per section, with an explicit rationale for each choice.
  • Prototype — Built an interactive prototype so stakeholders could experience the proposal instead of reading about it.
Clarity of balance and actions
The previous home screen forced users to parse dense text and small controls to understand their position. The redesign groups total balance, available balance, and primary actions (send, receive, add) into a single hero region with strong hierarchy and generous spacing — so "how much I have" and "what I can do next" are answered instantly.
A mining flow that explains itself
Mining is the app's core loop, but the old experience obscured rate, status, and time remaining. The redesign centers a single large control with a countdown and an explicit rate, then breaks the total rate into its components — base rate, boosters, rewards — each expandable with a plain-language explanation. The opaque number becomes something users can actually understand and act on.
Meeting category expectations
Navigation was consolidated into five primary tabs, with secondary functions moved to a separate menu — matching the mental model users bring from other wallets, and reducing the cost of learning the app.
Designing for two audiences at once
Every decision had to work for a first-time crypto user and an advanced one. The pattern that resolved this was progressive disclosure: simple by default, with depth available on demand.
The proposal was approved
The presentation secured client buy-in and won the redesign project for the agency — design was the deciding factor in a commercial conversation, not just a deliverable after the fact.
A defensible direction, not a mood board
Because each recommendation was backed by an audit finding and a category benchmark, the conversation with the client moved from taste to reasoning.
A roadmap, not just screens
Beyond the concepts, the proposal laid out a phased plan — from baseline goals and research through design, validation, and post-launch monitoring — giving the client a path forward rather than a set of images.
A prototype sells better than a deck
Letting stakeholders touch the flow shifted the conversation. Static slides invite critique of details; an interactive prototype invites people to imagine the product shipped.
  1. Benchmarking is an argument, not a shortcut
    Pointing to how leading products in the category solve a problem turned subjective preferences into evidence. It also made it clear where we were deliberately choosing to differ.
  1. Breadth earns the right to a recommendation
    Exploring many directions per problem wasn't wasted effort — it's what made the final recommendation credible. Showing the range demonstrates the choice was made, not defaulted into.
  1. Design can win the deal
    This work existed before a contract did. It reframed how I see design deliverables: sometimes the audience isn't the user yet — it's the person deciding whether the work happens at all.
Overview
Company: Pi Network (via 57 Blocks)
Role: UX/UI Designer
Platform: iOS & Android (mobile)
2025
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