Hello everyone, here is the Q3 2025 report from UX Bounty. Feel free to comment or contact us directly if you have any questions or feedback.
Thanks for the read!
Useful links
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All the reports → Quarter Reports
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Everything about the Polkadot UX Bounty → Polkadot UX Bounty HQ
1. Introduction
Note: since this report was made after Parity’s yearly retreat in mid-October, we’re only reporting on our Q3 activities. We’ll comment when relevant based on the new directions shared during that retreat. The UX Bounty will also undergo an overhaul to better align with these directions. We’ll share more information by the end of November, once our vision is aligned with W3F.
This report outlines the activities and progress of the Polkadot UX Bounty for Q3 2025, covering the period from early July 7th to October 7th 2025.
During this quarter, the bounty launched two new programs (Community Feedback and Data Analytics) and made progress on ongoing UX initiatives.
We delivered 5 UX Audits to ecosystem teams (reaching a total of 10 audits since inception) and formally kicked off our first ecosystem grant (supporting Turtle’s cross-chain swap widget).
In parallel, we advanced key projects like the Polkadot UI component library and the OpenGov Voting UI revamp.
The quarter also saw a greater emphasis on community involvement – from a newly launched feedback portal to UX mentorship for hackathon teams – reflecting our commitment to inclusive, ecosystem-driven improvement.
On the communications front, we continued to grow awareness of UX standards: 3 new teams upgraded to the unified format and 2 accepted to use DOT as a gas token.
We also engaged in cross-initiative outreach, collaborating with the Open Source Bounty and Web3 Foundation on developer tooling efforts, and participating in community events (like the Polkadot Build Hackathon) to promote UX best practices.
2. Finance Overview
2.1. DOT Holdings
Starting Amount (May 29, 2024 ): 67,678.00 DOT // ≈ 500,000 USD
+ Refill Amount (August 13, 2025): 67,085.02 DOT // =$277,731.97 USD
Remaining Funds (October 31, 2025 ): 61,017.67 DOT // ≈ $173,290.19 USD
Note: The price of DOT at the time of this report (October 31, 2025) was $2.84.
2.2. Q3 Spending Summary
2.3. Budget Commentary
In Q3, as we discussed in 2.3. Budget Commentary, we tracked curator’s time as part of projects to correctly identify where money and resources were going.
Additionally, we had previously budgetted every spend and we can now report on the actual spent vs budgetted.
As we see in the screenshots above, two lines were over budget, for UXB-1 and the Web3 Summit Hackathon. The rest of the expenditures were all under what was budgetted.
Those learnings helps us better adjust our budget for the next quarter and ask for the correct amount to the Polkadot community.
Our target of a 30/70 Ops vs Projects ratio by the end of the year is on track.
Below are the details and category breakdowns as of October 31, 2025.
2.3.1. Category Spend & Details Breakdown Q3
3. Work Progress
3.1. Achievements – Q3 2025
Projects in implementation
Projects where the work has been delivered to the ecosystem teams and is now in implementation. The UX Bounty doesn’t have much control beyond this phase.
1. [UXB-1] – Unification of Address Format
Standardization continues across parachains.
This remains a high-priority initiative, though implementation depends on each rollup team’s timeline. Monthly follow-ups ensure community transparency. View status tracker.
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Upgraded: Bifrost, Hydration, Hyperbridge, Mosaic, Kylix, Crust, Pendulum -
ETA Q4: Acala -
Pending: Remaining parachains (in planning or testing) -
Monthly follow-ups ensure transparency and consistent adoption.
2. [UXB-2] – DOT as a Unified Gas Token
Expanding fee unification efforts across the ecosystem.
Increased follow-ups provided clear status updates. View status tracker.
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Integrated: Bifrost, Hydration, Ajuna, Polimec, Kylix, Acala, Unique Network
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Ongoing: Discussions with additional parachains for Q4 adoption -
Not Interested: Kilt, Hyperbridge (reason) -
Increased awareness of unified gas practices via audit insights.
3. [UXB-3] – Protective Measures for CEX Transfers
Reducing risk of user fund losses.
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Integrated: Talisman, SubWallet
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No ETA: Nova
4. [UXB-6] – UX Glossary
Promoting consistent UI terminology across the ecosystem.
No update on the UX Glossary, this is an ecosystem ressource team can leverage and we have stopped our effort to broadcast it as most (if not all) teams know about its existence.
Q3 Projects - In progress
Initiatives started this quarter.
1. UX Audits Program
Over 210 UX recommendations were tracked and implemented across SubSquare, Mimir, and SubWallet, with early stages of Polkassembly review initiated.
This represents the largest quarter-to-date progress since the program’s launch — with several high-impact improvements now live across core ecosystem products.
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SubSquare: 28 completed (20 high-impact), 4 in progress, 3 backlog
→ Major updates include improved proposal creation flow, accessibility refactor, and governance navigation redesign.
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Mimir: 22 completed (15 high-impact), 5 in progress, 4 backlog
→ Delivered new onboarding walkthrough, proxy management flow, and real-time status notifications.
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SubWallet: 11 completed (8 high-impact), 12 in progress, 18 backlog
→ Implemented phishing protection improvements, contextual tooltips, and streamlined onboarding interface.
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Polkassembly: Initial scope defined, UX copy and page restructuring work to begin in Q4.
Overall progress:
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Total recommendations reviewed: 210+
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Completed: 61 (29% of total)
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High-impact fixes: 43
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Teams actively integrating: 3 (SubSquare, Mimir, SubWallet)
⇒ See the Implementation Tracker.
2. UXB-7 – Unified UI Library
Led by niftesty, the Polkadot UI component library project made substantial progress. We completed Milestones 1, 2, and 3 this quarter, delivering a functional prototype library with a CLI tool and a set of reusable Polkadot-styled components. The library was shared with the community for feedback and attracted 13⭐️ GitHub stars in short order. We saw strong engagement on both the forum and X (many likes/retweets), indicating developer interest in a unified UI toolkit. We’ve also aligned with key ecosystem contributors – for example, working with the Reactive Dot team (
Tien) and others to ensure the library complements existing tools and standards.
Looking ahead, remaining tasks like broader developer outreach and long-term maintenance planning were carried into Q4. (For now, continued promotion or external integrations will be handled within curator capacity until additional funding is justified.)
3. UXB-8 – Bridge UX
We collaborated with Parity and community members (notably @Distractive and @ThomasR) to improve bridge discoverability on Polkadot. By the end of Q3, an MVP “Polkadot Bridges” page was developed for the official website. This page consolidates information on available cross-chain bridges and provides users a clear starting point to bridge assets. During Q3 we collected feedback on the MVP through both online channels and in-person at Web3 Summit (where we did some IRL usability testing and stakeholder discussions). Based on the input, a conclusion report and next-step recommendations were prepared (e.g. SEO improvements, additional bridge integrations). We are now coordinating with the web team for the public launch of the Bridges page (targeted for early Q4). Additionally, we conducted outreach to all relevant parachain teams and external sites to establish backlinks and ensure up-to-date content once the page goes live. This project is on track, with final implementation steps in progress.
⇒ The forum update on the Bridges UX project
4. UXB-9 - OpenGov Voting System
We made steady progress in Q3 on improving the OpenGov voting and feedback experience. Our initial prototype focused on section-based commenting for referenda, enabling token holders to provide granular input on specific parts of a proposal. A small community test through forum threads helped us refine the approach.
Since then, our focus has shifted toward laying a stronger foundation for OpenGov data management. The UXB team now meets weekly with both SubSquare and Polkassembly, aligning efforts to move proposal content storage to Markdown-based files hosted outside traditional web2 systems. This shift will make governance data more portable, transparent, and resilient across platforms.
Looking ahead, the goal is to complete this Markdown storage integration, establish a shared file architecture across both platforms, and revisit the section-based commenting concept once this new infrastructure is in place.
⇒ Our Forum post on for an overview of the proposal, and the OpenGov UX prototype on Figma
5. Turtle Grant (Milestone 1 completed)
Our first UX grant officially kicked off in Q3, targeting a smoother cross-chain token swap experience. The grant was awarded to Turtle for their swap widget, which impressed us by setting a high UX standard for one-click swaps across multiple networks. This quarter we focused on grant setup and milestones: Turtle began refining the widget and preparing it for wider use in the Polkadot ecosystem. We didn’t hit any major blockers during this phase, aside from the usual coordination with parachain teams to ensure the widget will plug into their apps without issues. Next, we’ll help Turtle roll out the widget to interested parachains (we’re aiming to have a few integrations by the end of the year) and promote it as a go-to solution for easy cross-chain swaps.
6. Community Feedback Program (CFP)
We launched the Community Feedback Program at the tail end of Q3, giving everyone a chance to report UX issues and earn DOT rewards for helpful feedback. It’s basically a UX bug bounty users can point out pain points or glitches in any Polkadot ecosystem app, and we reward the best reports, turning community members into UX contributors. Setting up the submission platform and reward system took some work, but now that it’s live we’ve started to see a trickle of reports coming in. There were no major blockers besides fine-tuning our triage process (we want to respond quickly and fairly to submissions). Going forward, we’ll publicize this program more, scale up our response as more reports come in, and channel these insights into our backlog to make sure community-raised issues get addressed in future improvements.
⇒ Visit the Community Feedback Portal
7. Data Analytics Program (DAP)
Q3 saw the kickoff of our Data Analytics Program to help teams measure the impact of UX improvements with real user data. We started with a pilot partner, the Mimir project, integrating a privacy-friendly analytics tool (PostHog) and building a custom dashboard to track how users engage with their app. This has given the Mimir team concrete insights for example, which features are used most or where users drop off to guide their product decisions. One challenge was choosing an analytics approach that respects user privacy and works for Web3 (no cookies or invasive tracking), but our PostHog setup has been a good solution so far.
8. Ecosystem Support: AHM & HUB
In Q3, we stayed busy supporting the wider Polkadot ecosystem and doing a bit of outreach. Our UX team lent a hand with major initiatives like the Asset Hub migration, offering input to ensure those transitions are smooth for users. We also put together a “UX tooling” cheat-sheet for teams working on the new Polkadot Hub and coordinated with Web3 Foundation’s grant team to align efforts (so projects get a unified support experience). On the outreach side, we mentored a few hackathon winners from a Web3 event, sharing UX best practices to help kickstart their projects. Looking ahead, we’ll keep offering on-call UX support for any team that needs it and continue bridging between different orgs and teams (Parity, W3F, etc.) to make sure user experience remains a shared priority across the ecosystem.
3.2. Comparison from our last report
It can be hard to remember exactly what we planned vs. what we delivered, so here’s a side-by-side comparison of 2025 - Q2 statements and the outcomes in Q3 2025:
4. Stay Connected
To get all the updates from the UX Bounty, follow us on X, join the UX Guild on Telegram, or be on the lookout in the Forum 