DeFinance was an individual coursework project completed as part of the CalArts UI/UX Design Specialization. The assignment was to design a clickable mobile app prototype from the ground up, covering the process from early research and product definition through user flows and interface design.
I chose to explore decentralized finance because crypto products felt powerful but unnecessarily intimidating—especially for people who were interested but didn’t know where to begin. Instead of designing another trading dashboard filled with charts, numbers, and industry language, I wanted to explore how a financial product could help people understand what they were investing in and make more informed decisions.
I worked independently across the entire project, including exploratory research, product strategy, information architecture, user flows, wireframes, visual design, and prototyping.
Because this was a coursework project, the scope and research sample were limited. I treated it as an opportunity to explore the complete design process and test how education, portfolio tracking, trading, and market information could come together in one experience.
Many crypto products assume people already understand wallets, exchanges, market movement, and financial terminology. They provide a lot of information, but very little guidance around what that information means or why it matters.
That speed and density can be useful for experienced investors. For someone investing for the first time, though, it creates a lot of uncertainty. They may not know how to compare coins, which metrics matter, or whether they’re making an unnecessarily risky decision.
The challenge became:
How might a crypto investing app give new investors more guidance without slowing down people who already know what they want to do?
To better understand the problem, I conducted a small exploratory survey using social media polls and Google Forms.
The responses pointed to two broad groups. Newer investors were interested in crypto but hesitant because they lacked knowledge and didn’t know where to begin. More experienced investors were already active, but often used multiple platforms to research, trade, and track their holdings.
The research also suggested that people weren’t only looking for a place to buy coins. They wanted context—especially news and information that could help them understand why the market was changing.
These findings were directional rather than conclusive, but they gave the concept a clearer focus.
I organized the product around three core needs:
Users should be able to quickly see what they own, how their portfolio is performing, and what has recently changed.
Coin pages should explain price movement, market cap, volume, supply, and related news in language that feels approachable.
News, notifications, and widgets should help users follow important changes without requiring them to constantly check the app.
Together, these ideas shifted DeFinance away from being purely a trading tool. The concept became a place where learning, acting, and tracking could happen within the same experience.
Before moving into visual design, I mapped the main tasks someone might need to complete:
I used these tasks to create a page map and define how the major parts of the app would connect.
The home dashboard brought together portfolio performance, owned and watched coins, suggested assets, and relevant news. The goal was to give users a useful overview without turning the screen into a wall of financial data (which crypto products are very good at doing).
The coin detail page became one of the most important parts of the concept.
Rather than only showing a price chart, I designed the page around a more useful question:
Is this coin right for me?
Information was separated into two levels. Price, performance, and recent movement provided a quick overview for people who already understood the market. Supporting information—including market cap, volume, supply, popularity, and relevant news—provided more context for people who wanted to learn.
I also explored educational helpers that could explain what each metric meant and why someone might care about it. The intention wasn’t to remove financial complexity, but to introduce it gradually so people could build confidence over time.
After researching a coin, users could move directly into buying it. For someone completing an action for the first time, the flow would provide more guidance and confirmation. Once they owned the asset, additional actions such as selling, exchanging, or transferring would become available.
Purchased coins would then appear on the portfolio dashboard, connecting the transaction back to ongoing tracking and learning.
This was intentional. Buying wasn’t treated as the end of the journey. Understanding what happened afterward—and knowing when something changed—was just as important.
Crypto prices are often affected by announcements, regulation, public sentiment, and broader market changes. Because of that, I treated news as part of the decision-making experience rather than placing it in an isolated section.
Users could browse recent articles and filter stories by coin, making it easier to connect market movement with the events surrounding it.
The goal wasn’t to help people trade faster. It was to give them more context before they made a decision.
I also explored how notifications and iOS widgets could support the experience outside the main product.
Notifications could alert users to significant portfolio changes, unusual coin movement, or important news. Widgets could provide a quick view of owned or watched assets without requiring someone to open the app.
These touchpoints reflected a practical part of investing behavior: people don’t always want to check an app, but they do want to know when something meaningful happens.
DeFinance was an early exploration of how education and investing tools might work together in one mobile experience. It taught me how to move from a broad subject into a more focused product direction, then translate that direction into a connected set of flows and interfaces.
If I revisited the concept today, I would place much more emphasis on user testing, risk communication, security, accessibility, and the ethical responsibility that comes with designing financial products. I would also be more careful about how the experience presents educational content without implying certainty or providing financial advice.
The project started as an exercise in designing a crypto app, but it became an early lesson in something I still care about: organizing complicated information so people can understand what they’re looking at before they’re asked to act on it.