Coinbycedar3

Made buying and selling crypto feel simple for first-timers.

Senior UI/UX Designer
Led a team of 2 designers
Mobile and web

Jump to key decisions

Coinbycedar3 wallet showing total balance and individual coin balances

The problem: Crypto platforms assumed users understood finance and spoke in jargon, so first-timers were overwhelmed before they made a single trade.
What I did: I led research and competitive analysis during the pandemic, then designed a wallet system for mobile and web: onboarding with KYC, buy, sell, send and receive, a live market and a conversion-focused landing page.
The result: A crypto wallet that reduces cognitive load at every step, with balances at a glance and plain-language flows.

platforms: mobile and web: 2
core actions: buy, sell, send, receive: 4
market leaders benchmarked: Binance, Luno: 2
built into onboarding: KYC

Company: At SBSC, a software consulting agency
Role: Senior UI/UX Designer (design lead)
Team: 3 designers, PM, 2 engineers, business analyst
Platform: iOS, Android and web
Tools: Figma, Miro, Google Docs, Jira

Problem & context

Crypto was built for insiders. We designed for everyone else.

Coinbycedar3 is a crypto wallet for web and mobile: buy, sell, send and receive coins, follow prices, and keep up with crypto news, connected to a global payment gateway.

Most people don’t understand crypto trading, and most platforms are too complicated to navigate. Our job was to make the first trade feel safe and obvious.

Constraints

Research during COVID-19, so all interviews were remote
Strict identity checks (KYC) to prevent fraud

Role & team

I led design for both apps.

That’s me
Chukwuemeka Iheonye
Senior UI/UX Designer
Research, competitive analysis, interaction design, mobile and web UI; led two designers.
Design
2 Product Designers
UI production across mobile and web.
Product & engineering
PM, 2 engineers, business analyst
Requirements and build.

Research & insights

The industry’s biggest barrier was its own language.

Because of COVID-19, we interviewed crypto adopters over Zoom and Google Meet, ran surveys, and did a heuristic evaluation and competitive analysis.

01
Jargon shuts people out
Platforms over-relied on technical terms and assumed users already understood finance and crypto.
02
Binance won on choice
Praised for its variety of coins and a simplified, beginner-friendly app.
03
Luno won on simplicity
Praised for usability and a clean, simple interface.
04
People wanted to learn in context
Education inside the product mattered as much as the trading tools.

Process

Benchmarking the leaders, then sketching something simpler.

01
Benchmark
Listed competitors, compared features side by side, and studied what made Binance and Luno work.
02
Sketch
Brainstormed and sketched ways to simplify buying and selling.
03
Design
High-fidelity mobile and web flows with consistent patterns across both.

Table of competitors with ratings and downloads — Who we were up against.

Feature comparison matrix across competitors — Feature comparison across competitors.

Key decisions

Every decision aimed to lower cognitive load.

Decision 01
One balance, then the detail
Portfolios across many coins are hard to read.
What we chose
A wallet that shows the total balance first, with each coin’s balance below.
Why
Answers ‘how am I doing?’ before ‘what do I hold?’.
Decision 02
Receive with a QR code or an address
Long wallet addresses are error-prone to share.
What we chose
A receive screen with both a QR code and a copyable address.
Why
Fewer failed or mistaken transfers.
Decision 03
Buy and sell without a middleman
Many users had to find external buyers or sellers.
What we chose
Buy and sell directly in the app, with a clear confirmation of fees before every order.
Why
Simpler and safer, with no surprises on price.
Decision 04
Make KYC part of onboarding
As a financial product, fraud prevention was non-negotiable.
What we chose
Identity verification, including facial recognition, built into a short onboarding.
Why
Security without making sign-up feel like paperwork.