Does great technology work without a good user experience?

How are you?

Last week, the "Ludo Dev E-Shop" explanatory page was released. On this page, it's explained that the emphasis has been placed on the user experience, and that everything has been done to try and keep the experience as simple as possible. Behind this interface, there's a lot of technology (full automation), but is this technology alone enough?

In this week's article, we're going to talk about the user experience, and how to make it a pleasant one. For this, I'm going to use the "Elrond" network and its "Maiar" application.

Remember to keep in the back of your mind that what is described in this article is my vision of things....

What is the "Elrond" network?

A quick look at "Elrond

This article will focus on the user experience of Elrond applications, so I'll keep it brief.

In blockchain technologies, there are three basic problems to be solved, representing a triangle with the following angles:

• Security
• Decentralization
• scalability

The problem is that in most blockchain projects, two of the three problems are often perfectly mastered. But the third is not. For example, on Ethereum, security and decentralization are top-notch.This is why, by 2021, most cryptocurrency miners will be mining Ethereum.
This problem can also be found in Bitcoin, which is highly decentralized and very secure, but the number of transactions per second is still limited (compared to Visa or Mastercard).
Other projects are trying to solve the scalability problem, but they're not as secure or decentralized as Bitcoin. The Binance Smart Chain, for example, is far less decentralized.

"Elrond" is one such project, which is also trying to solve the problem of the blockchain trilemma, and to do this they have implemented several technologies. I won't go into detail, but you should know that their aim is to "Put blockchain in everyone's pocket".

For more details

If what you've just read interests you and you'd like to know more about the "Elrond" network, French crypto star Owen Simonin has made a video about it that you can find on youtube .

The user experience

Why talk about Elrond when talking about user experience?
It's starting to emerge with countries like El Salvador, which has made bitcoin an official currency, but there's still a long way to go before it really becomes mainstream.

So, it's interesting to see how "Elrond", tries to create a good user experience and tries to facilitate access to these technologies, to as they say "put the blockchain in everyone's pocket".

I'd say "Maiar" is the "Lydia" of crypto.
The big success of the Lydia app comes largely from its ease of use, the success of Maiar comes, I think, also from its ease of use.

For this, I'll go by example, with a few cases I've seen in the ecosystem.

The security of the recovery phrase explained

If you're wondering what a private key is, I talk about it in my article on ransomware.
On Maiar, when you want to see this phrase, you have to type the following sentence "If I share my secret phrase, I'll lose my money".

Now, we're not going to lie, for someone familiar with the world of cryptocurrency, this is restrictive. But when you know that access to a wallet's secret phrase is no more and no less than access to the wallet itself ... it's best to go all out on the explanations, even if it's a little restrictive.

Simplified account addresses

In the traditional banking system in Europe, an IBAN starts with something like "FR76" and is followed by a series of numbers - nothing too frightening, it's common and known by all bank account processors.
In the crypto world, to send you funds you also have an address, though it's a little scarier, it looks something like " erd1dq32skzntawnqjej8uj0zzgz3l9j6mpqef9u76jfjyymwncy4xxsj8haqk" here it's my Elrond address.

In fact, if you're a developer or know anything about computers, this is simply what's known as a "Hash", but it can scare off newcomers.
To solve this problem, Elrond engineers have decided to use what they call "Herotag". This is simply an "@" followed by a pseudonym, yes, the same thing you use on Twitter or Instagram.
So there's no need to use that long, scary address.

Gamification" to encourage people to "invest

I put the word "invest" in quotation marks, because when you put money into crypto it's not necessarily investing, you're more converting one currency into another, which has its own exchange rate (for example, the euro and the dollar). Then there are project tokens, but that's another matter.
In their applications, they've put in a "level" system with rewards, stickers, the idea here is to make "saving" fun, and get you to put money into the system. It's akin to gamification, and I think Maiar has done it rather well.

Simple connection to the entire ecosystem

In the crypto world, there are many things, such as DEFI (decentralized finance) as opposed to CEFI (centralized finance).To access DEFI, we use DEXs (decentralized exchanges).
When you use a centralized platform like Binance, your cryptos don't belong to you, because they're stored at Binance and not with you. On a decentralized platform, it's you who sends your cryptos for exchange, it goes directly from your wallet to the target wallet, and it's you who accepts the transaction (by signing it with your private key).

DEFI" is one of the big new features of the 2021 crypto world.

At Maiar, they've made the process very simple: just scan a QR code on Maiar's "DEFI" platform (Maiar Exchange) with your phone, and you're in.You're directly connected to the platform, and then your phone will be used to sign your transactions.
On other "DEFI" platforms, the standard is to use a wallet like Metamask, which isn't as easy to learn (but works well).

Conclusion

I've taken the world of crypto to talk about user experience, because it's still an obscure world for many people.
The only way for it to really become something of everyday life is for access to it to be very simple.
I think that's what "Maiar" is trying to do, which is why I've used it as an example.
There's no commercial relationship between "Elrond" and me, I just like the project, because I love the way they do things. Nevertheless, I'd like to post my sponsorship link for those who want to give it a try.
Have a great week and see you next week?