Polkadot App for onboarding

[julomat]

Hi all, Julian here.

I wanted to start the discussion about the potential of a Polkadot mobile (Super)app, used to onboard no-coiners and non crypto natives into the Polkadot ecosystem.

I joined the web3 foundation a year ago to work on some exciting projects that are currently being developed but am new to the Polkadot forum and relatively new to the blockchain space. My background includes 8 years at Audi and Lamborghini designing cars, most recently 10 years industrial and UI design at Apple.

After some time investigating and exploring the Polkadot ecosystem and beyond, I saw that there is an opportunity for an app that is focused on beginners, an onboarding tool with features that are relevant to a larger audience.
Simple to use.
Polkadot branded.

Between Andrey, Birdo, Slava and myself, (members of Parity & W3F) we have formed a small group to work on an initial concept in our spare time, imagining what this could look like, mostly focusing on the overall idea and the user flows.

Andrey has a very strong UX background, Birdo brings a lot of wallet experience from Talisman, and Slava is a design machine. We have shared an initial figma design prototype with some parachain teams in Copenhagen and got positive feedback and some suggestions for features we added already.

Now we would like to take the opportunity and share the concept with the Polkadot wider community to get additional feedback. Please keep in mind that this is only a design prototype (no code has been written) and more importantly that this app is meant for people new to crypto (probably not for you, even though you might find some functions useful too).

The Polkadot App MVP could have following 4 Functions:

Digital Identity
Web3 Feed
Staking
Wallet & Payments

We envisage it like a super app that can grow with new features over time. We included some ideas at the end of the post. After we receive your feedback we’ll complete another concept/ design round and look into next steps. If we agree together that this is something useful for the ecosystem, we have to think about the best way to make it happen. It’s likely we would run this as a separate company from Parity/W3F to give creative freedom and decision making. However we are not developers and as such have been discussing this idea with teams such as Novasama (the creators of Nova Wallet) who could help us bring these ideas to life with their development teams.

Link to the deck:

https://pitchdeck.hypermatic.com/slides/lmuhy3xt34353/?token=OVpsVWh4ZExfQ1k2b08=

Link to the clickable Prototype:
(you need to install Figma on your phone)

Figma

Overview

Polkadot can be confusing, complex and difficult to learn. Crypto and Polkadot have a large barrier to entry which we believe we can solve with this product, the ‘Polkadot App’.
An all in one initiative to onboard ‘no-coiners’ and individuals that are new to crypto, people who have used central exchanges in the past or individuals that are interested in Web 3.

The Polkadot App is a product centred around onboarding users to Web3 and Polkadot in the shortest possible time, with many of the complexities of Web3 extracted away. The Polkadot app will let users create their own digital identity, buy and stake DOT, browse and engage with Web3 news specific to Polkadot, hold DOT and stable coins in a self custodial way.

We acknowledge that there are many other wallets in the Polkadot space, and this product is not intended to be a wallet first, as the user will only be able to hold several assets (tbd but likely DOT, KSM, UDST/USDC and BTC only) but instead a gateway to the Polkadot ecosystem.

In fact during Polkadot Decoded in 2023, we had the opportunity to show many individuals the demo of the Polkadot App, including core team members from Talisman, Nova wallet and many founders of parachain teams, who were all supportive of this endeavour.

There is a lot more we can do with this product, and we have many ideas about future features and possibilities with the app, including the ability to gift funds and nfts, buy event tickets, language support, a learn to earn system, deeper payments integration and much more.

The first version of the Polkadot App will be an excellent way that we can onboard the masses, teach them about Polkadot and arm the Polkadot ambassadors with an easy way to teach their local communities about Polkadot.

Target audience

By simplifying the Web3 and Polkadot experience, coupled with beautiful and clean design, we will be able to speak to a wider audience range.

The Polkadot App concept has been created to appeal to a user segment that Polkadot has previously had trouble attracting based on complex network design or overwhelming jargon.

With the correct marketing we will be able to, more easily than ever before, convert non-crypto users to holding DOT and beginning a journey to discover web3.

There are thousands of users that hold DOT on central exchanges that we will also target to move to a self custodial solution where they can better leverage and stake their assets.

Even for existing technical DOT holders using products like the Polkadot Vault product, the Polkadot App will allow them to have an easy to use product to register for events, create an identity and transfer small amounts of funds for goods / services.

The Polkadot app gives the network an opportunity to better talk to the community, pushing events, interesting news articles and promotion of the parachains and products building in the ecosystem.

The Polkadot app would feature:

• A basic digital identity to setup and own your own persona in the Polkadot space.
• A web3 browser which showcases curated news, events, dapps and interesting stories out of the Polkadot ecosystem.
• The ability to simply stake DOT in one tap
• Asset storage and easy payment options

Further features

The Polkadot App described above creates a true foundation for future development and growth of the product. We envisage that there are many other features and functionalities that we would like to bring to the Polkadot App such as:

• Messaging,
• Further social features,
• Better integration of events including ticket purchasing
• Ways to earn DOT
• Ability to send and receive DOT and NFTs as gifts
• Widgets in the browser to perform certain dapp actions directly in the app

We imagine the product to be feature rich, but never compromising on ease of use.
The App could be featured on polkadot.network in a section for end users.

thank you for your time & please comment

[alice_und_bob]

I love the idea of a super app! It sounds like you took the right approach by creating a prototype and getting feedback from people.

At first sight, this app is different from what my imagination would create as a super app. I was expecting an app that allows you to access to features of multiple parachains under a single frontend (not redirecting to webapps, but actually integrating). The concept you are presenting looks more like a crossover of a wallet and something like parachains.info. The app has to start somewhere and I think you picked the correct conservative scope for what should be there first, but I hope that in the future the scope can expand to providing a shared frontend for multiple parachains.

In terms of what you can consider, I would suggest the following ideas:

• see if a collaboration with Apillon can be achieved, as they develop a Treasury funded API over several chains
• social features should be integrated against Subsocial. It has a lot of great primitives and it would be great to finally see it being integrated in a 3rd party frontend. The Subsocial team also has experience in abstracting away transactions and account creation and token payments from the user
• pushing to integrate features that might be offered by competing entities (identity, NFTs, Swaps) might also force us to consider common interfaces to abstract away the complexities of the individual products

[julomat]

thank you for the feedback @alice_und_bob !!
going to share it with the team.

we see the first release as foundation for a super app. to be a true web3 super app integration of parachains is really important as you suggested.

maybe we can bring the social aspect into the app sooner. it depends on how fast we can grow a user base.

[sodazone]

Thank you very much for sharing!

In reference to the suggested collaboration w/ Apillon:

Why is another level of remote centralized indirection necessary between the app and the RPC endpoints and indexer APIs (discounting light clients)? Wouldn’t orchestrating across RPCs and Indexer APIs through an SDK, abstracting it for the app, make more sense than interfacing with a remote API aggregator?

Additionally, why introduce proxy credit tokens for transactions in a multichain environment? We would prefer that this is addressed without the need for a custodian middleman, perhaps through a decentralized cross-chain swap solution with sufficient liquidity?

We’ve previously observed this approach’s success during the peak of the hype, as seen with projects like Moralis. However, we believe it’s shortsighted to push initiatives in this direction at the present moment.

Our envisioned future for end-user engagement is a P2P client-centric superapp, tailored to both newcomers and experienced users, providing comprehensive interaction and information about the entire ecosystem. Maybe on top of or forking from https://veilid.com/?

[nightwing]

Hey Julian!

Firstly, I love the effort and thought that has gone into conceptualizing this app. And also the fact that you’ve posted about it on the forum to gain feedback from the community – quality move.

The identified problem is spot-on, but I believe the solution might not make a dent in the core issue.

The term “super-app” suggests a comprehensive, all-encompassing platform, but from the features listed, it seems more akin to a payments app – that too not a great one as most users are not going to be using DOT, KSM, or USDT from Asset Hub for payments. This isn’t necessarily a drawback, but it’s essential to set the right expectations for potential users.

The feature set that could significantly enhance the app’s utility is the integration of yield opportunities for blue-chip assets. With several amazing opportunities in Polkadot DeFi waiting to be tapped in, an easy-to-navigate UX offering such opportunities could be a game-changer, making the app genuinely “super.”

My primary concern, however, revolves around the app’s long-term vision. If the end-game is to transition users to different wallets once they reach a certain threshold, it raises questions about the app’s value proposition. Is the goal to be a stepping stone or a long-term solution for users?

I think simply branding it as a super user-friendly wallet and building it out as such is a bigger value add to the ecosystem.

Looking forward to further insights and discussions.

[Chris_Nifty]

Thank you @julomat, for putting this together.’

I support this initiative.

Polkadot needs a mobile app that can onboard non-crypto-centric users. This is can the first entry point into Polkadot for noncrypto users.

@julomat

A web3 browser which showcases curated news, events, dapps and interesting stories out of the Polkadot ecosystem

This is a very good idea.

@julomat

but never compromising on ease of use.

This is key; if the app is not easy to use, people will not use it. Crypto users ( like myself) will jump through obstacles to try new things. But most users don’t want to struggle and learn how to use a product.

Thank you again for putting this together!

[Whisker17]

I really like your design, @julomat, it’s awesome!

From my end, if you want to build a mobile app for user onboarding, I highly recommend integrating a domain system instead of a simple digital identity, the functionality of a domain system will help you a lot, such as social handles and transfer assets w/o a long address, you can also display your NFT profile to your friends, which is much better than a simple identity.

[lolmcshizz]

So pleased to see this progressing - I’ll be honest, my initial response when I originally heard about it was “oh ffs not another wallet surely”. But this product is very clearly an onboarding tool that would be perfect to get my waifu, mum and dad into web3 without hours of support and eventually me just doing it for them.

Love the clickable prototype, it really helps to bring the whole thing to life.

A note to everyone whose initial response is to list a bunch of additional features that should be added - remember the critical point that this app is not for us, it’s for normie no-coiners like your mum. These users will be interacting with web3 without realising it:

• Creating a new wallet with a digital ID simply by typing the username they want (KILT/ Nova/ Apillon?)
• Minting their first NFT for their account pfp simply by selecting an image (KodaDot assethub/ KodaDot Tanssi/ RMRK Tanssi/ RMRK Moonbeam/ Unique?)
• Buying their first DOT (or stablecoins) using their bank card (Banxa assethub integration?)
• Sending assets to friends, paying for services or switching between assets without interacting with a DEX UI (AssetHub/ NovaWallet super dex aggregator/ Omnipool Stableswap?)

Wrt ways to earn DOT - if you look at the intentions behind the recent airdrop.com treasury proposal, along with things like the Revolut Polkadot learning modules, Coinbase learn, etc - this app would be a perfect place to educate users on Polkadot and reward them with smol amounts of DOT from the Treasury. You could even recycle content from the Revolut learning stuff and/ or the Polkadot Ambassador Hub.

+1 on @alice_und_bob suggestion to work with Subsocial on social features - perhaps grill.chat rooms spun up for the NFT collections that users choose as their pfp when setting things up, or a more broad learning/ support chat… would suggest that these should be heavily moderated (but MuH nOt WeB3 ) in order to not put these people off of Polkadot for life.

[GuinnessStache]

Love the idea! Might I suggest adding in Polkadot Gifts App ? I remember stumbling upon this feature one day and always wondered why we never see it used more as it seems like a great way to onboard friends and family easily?

[batman]

Beautiful! Had been looking for something that could be a starting point for normies.

+1 on pretty much everything @lolmcshizz said.

I’m curious if this app would be open source? As in could the community contribute to building this?

Also, when you say “widgets” - does this suggest that dApp devs could make sort of a plugin and publish it on the app, similar to an app store?

[Coleman_Maher]

This looks great @Birdo and I am generally supportive of Parity using some resources to build end-user applications

[michel]

+1 on common interfaces for common interactions; essentially introducing widgets (eg. Rainbow uses Uniswap’s swap component as a widget)

[michel]

This is definitely pointing towards a gap in the ecosystem.

Two thoughts:

Discoverability
How would new users end up discovering and installing the app? If I wanted to just get exposure to DOT as a no-coiner, wouldn’t I just acquire some via Revolut etc.? What would move me from a CEX or banking app to this app?

Testing assumptions
Designing and building this long list of potential features would require a lot of resources and it’s not clear users want all those features. How do we compare and contrast opportunities, run experiments with users and test assumptions to ensure the up-front investments are worth it? Do new users really look for a super app with all those bells and whistles, or are there a few core functionalities that fulfil their demands?

I’ve been listening to this today (32:12 - 33:50), where they talk about how a top team quickly evaluated what users really wanted in an app, and the fact that too many features can actually be too confusing.

Strategyzer Webinar with David Bland: Testing Business Ideas

If there’s a way to quickly test demand from real users and let their behaviour inform further iteration cycles, I think this can become a super powerful tool to onboard and retain new users.

[Mjdeleon]

Have you heard pi network. Created 45m regular people community but haven’t attracted developers to build on them. maybe you can copy what they did to lure those 45m people.

1st create an app that user just need to click a power button inside it once a day to run your app account centralize cloud mining. One click good for 24hrs.

2nd mining rate decrease every 500k new app user. to increase personal mining rate you have to invite people. More invite the fastest the mining rate.
(This stage last for years and people go crazy inviting)

3rd to officially get the coins collected over the years. you have to complete pi network decentralised kyc. and your invited friends should complete kyc too to get the 100% coins collected over the years.

4th add more functions to the app like decentralised kyc, market place, browser, wallet. etc

Now they have successfully created a massive regular people community waiting and cheering for pi network.

Simple but effective marketing and perfect rabbit hole

Tip:
You can invent the most powerful blockchain technology maybe you get from alliens that can process 1b transaction per second and created most beautiful design made by perhaps kusama… regular people just 101% dont care…

to get their attention you have to give them “return”

[bruno]

Nice work!

Reminds me of this:

• Telegram starts to look like a super app, echoing WeChat | TechCrunch

What if it was a chat-first super app? You get the userbase. Friends and family have a reason to use it on a daily basis. Slowly onboard them into features in our ecosystem.

But I do not believe we have a chat protocol yet in-place

We need chat.

We do have work from Web3 Foundation on a decentralized messaging project:

GitHub - w3f/messaging: Messaging for Web3

If we can solve building a scalable, fast, decentralized messaging protocol than we could have a chat product that is more secure than Telegram.

BTW, as I am writing this, coincidentally Toncoin is one spot ahead of DOT.

[filippoweb3]

I support this initiative! It would probably be a good time to think about a Polkadot Wiki Lite version for mobiles that can be easily integrated into the App. What do you think?

[vesti]

I love this innitiative as UX is one of the biggest roadblocks in web3 adoption! My 2 cents are:

• I like this idea of starting with something relatively easy and achivable
• I like how you’re getting inspiration from other successful projects/ apps / platforms
• I cannot wait to try the first MVP
• I’d love to see some integration with Ledger (yeah, I know I asked for simplicity but… I can also be a bit selfish can’t I)

Amazing job, I really hope this happens any time soon!

[faultcore]

Very interesting idea @julomat and I support the creation of the app as you described it.
Seeing events, news and community initiatives in one place would be very useful. I think that having an entry point into the ecosystem for marketing and onboarding purposes could be quite helpful.

However, I see a risk about future features and development strategy of this app and I agree with @nightwing that the more specific features it has, the more it will compete with the existing wallets in the ecosystem. In my opinion it might be right to halt the development of this app quite early, offering users who are interested in diving deeper into the ecosystem different app options that they can use depending on their interests and role, and not lumping everything into a single super-app. In that case perhaps it would be logical to advertise parachains in the app, but suggest that to use them they require other wallets to unlock more functionality?

As for discoverability and testing, in the neighboring DevEx topic it is suggested to increase Polkadot’s visibility in events and discussions. Perhaps conferences are a great starting point for research and communication with users.

[Denjiro]

Hello everyone, wanting the best for Polkadot and being in the ecosystem from the beginning, I would like this super app to be the best it can be, perhaps not at launch because you have to start somewhere.

Here’s my opinion:
Firstly, the colors used should match the color codes highlighted by polkadot.network (Pink #E6007A and Purple #552BBF are the most iconic).
Secondly, there should be an educational section in line with the Polkadot wiki.
Thirdly, it should be possible to participate in network governance with a simplified UX and UI, as proposed by @shawntabrizi; the interface could take inspiration from Tinder. This would increase participation in governance and showcase Polkadot’s unique qualities.

The goal of this application is to attract new users, but what will these newcomers do after a few minutes or hours of use?

Here’s what I believe the Polkadot application should offer in the long run:

• Educate and learn about what Polkadot and web3 are in general.
• Provide access to essential network information (number of active validators, number of active nominators, number of staked tokens, number of active wallets in the last 30 days).
• Buy, send, and receive DOT to other addresses on different networks in a trustless manner.
• Swap DOT for other tokens in a trustless way (via AssetHub).
• Present different parachains and the various services they offer (Portal to apps?).
• Participate in network staking.
• Chat with other users (Grill.chat?).
• Vote in an intuitive manner.

The image that this super app should reflect is “Less trust, more truth.”

[michel]

+1 on not going full super app without regularly talking and testing with users. The app as a starting point to other ecosystem offerings sounds like a sensible direction.