Etcheve NFT/

Etcheve NFT/

Etcheve NFT/

Project Summary

I was brought in as the first and only UX designer to rescue a half-built NFT web app with poor conversion and no UX foundation, and turn it into a product emerging artists could confidently use to promote their work. Partnering with PM, engineers, and other designers, I led discovery and usability testing to uncover where non-technical users were getting stuck and why. What began as a confusing, jargon-heavy flow evolved into clearer onboarding, reorganized information architecture, and an art-forward design system that aligned the team and made it much easier for non-technical artists to understand, create, and showcase their NFT projects.

Letting Users’ Mental Models Lead the Rebrand

The moment that stayed with me most was when our PM chose my rebrand proposal as the new face of the product, something I honestly never expected.

Going into that review, I kept thinking other designers’ work would look “more artistic,” but I couldn’t shake the sense that what our overwhelmed first‑time NFT users really needed was a quieter interface that matched their mental model instead of another flashy screen. So I treated the brief as mine to own: I chose a restrained black‑and‑white direction and redesigned the homepage, framing my presentation around how it would help emerging artists follow each step instead of getting lost in jargon. When that direction was selected and later expanded into the design system everyone used, it taught me that

The moment that stayed with me most was when our PM chose my rebrand proposal as the new face of the product, something I honestly never expected.

good visual design isn’t about how loud the UI looks, but about whether it reflects how users think and makes a complex product feel simple enough to trust.

My Role

UX Design Intern

Duration

Dec.2022-Feb. 2023

Tools

Figma,Photoshop,Miro

Team

UX Designers,PM,Engineers

Impact

30%

More users added perks for their NFT and events

52%

More users complete the NFT creation flow

46%

More NFT items were created per day

From Zero Domain Knowledge to Leading the Design Direction

Story Part I-Turning “I Don’t Get NFT” Into the Right Questions

Domain Knowledge · Competitor Analysis · Taking Ownership

When this project started, I was responsible for improving the NFT upload flow, but I barely understood how NFT platforms actually worked, which made me secretly worry that every decision I made would be wrong. Instead of pretending I understood, I brought this knowledge gap to our later meetings and asked stakeholders to share concrete competitor examples and specific flows they thought we should pay attention to. Once they pointed out which products they admired and which user journeys mattered most, I could finally see where to focus our research, and our discovery work became much faster and more targeted. This was the first time I realized that “not understanding the domain” was not a weakness to hide, but a signal that I needed to take ownership of asking better questions and shaping what the team should learn next.

Story Part II-Building Clarity in a Domain Where No One Was the Expert

User Journey Map · Affinity Mapping · Making Sense of Chaos

As research progressed, we interviewed many creators and collected a large amount of scattered feedback in a domain no one on the team was truly familiar with. Without a senior expert to rely on, I worked with the other designers to build a user journey map from “creating a project” to “getting an NFT onto the list,” then used affinity mapping to cluster where people hesitated, got confused, or dropped off. Patterns started to emerge: complex forms full of specialized NFT terms, overlapping menu structures, and almost no guidance for new users without a technical background. Through this process, I learned how to turn an overwhelming amount of unstructured feedback into a clear narrative the team could act on, and it was the first time I felt I could move a chaotic project forward by creating my own structure rather than waiting for someone else to define it for me.

Story Part III-Turning Pushback and Budget Constraints Into a Win
for Users

Design Presentation · Cross-functional Collaboration · Design System

Once the main problems were clear, I redesigned the onboarding flow and information architecture with a focus on clearer guidance for new users. That first presentation, where stakeholders pushed back on the unfinished look and specific details like layouts and naming, forced me to sharpen how I communicate design intent and make trade‑offs visible. At the same time, I collaborated with designers and engineers to realign the main menu and grow a shared design system that later evolved into the rebrand direction the team adopted, which gave me a strong sense of growth as a product designer.