Most crypto products are created by engineers for users who already know gas, slippage, and seed phrases. Everyone else leaves before they experience what you built. We conduct the design research that reveals where real users – not the power users in your Discord – actually get stuck, then reshape the product around those findings.
The Challenge
Your Test Users Are Not The People Really Using Your Product
Every crypto team user-tests with people who already hold a wallet, already know what a seed phrase is, and already forgive rough edges because they believe in the space. That group is a tiny fraction of who you need to reach past this cycle. Design decisions validated only against crypto-native testers ship products that quietly fail with everyone else, and nobody notices until the funnel data comes back flat.
Onboarding Drop-Off That Nobody Can Explain
Wallet connection, network switching, gas estimation, and transaction confirmation are four separate places a new user can bail, and most teams only have aggregate funnel numbers, not session-level research into why. Without qualitative research sitting next to the analytics, a team ends up guessing at fixes – redesigning a button when the real problem is a confusing gas estimate three steps earlier.
Feature Complexity Ships Before Usability Testing Can Catch Up
DeFi protocols add staking tiers, governance mechanics, and new asset types on a shipping cadence that outruns any usability process most teams have in place. Each new feature adds cognitive load for a user who was already close to the edge of understanding the product, and without dedicated research capacity, that compounding complexity ships untested until support tickets or churn numbers reveal the damage.
No Insight Into What Actually Creates Trust In A Trustless Product
Getting someone to connect a wallet and sign a transaction requires a different kind of trust than getting them to enter a credit card number, and most product teams design against consumer-app patterns that do not transfer. Without research into what specifically reduces hesitation at the connect-wallet and approve-transaction moments, teams keep polishing visuals while the actual blocker – fear of an irreversible mistake – goes unaddressed.
What We Do
We begin with research, not a redesign brief. That means moderated sessions with people across the crypto-familiarity spectrum – complete newcomers, occasional DeFi users, and power users – navigating your actual product on their own devices and with their own wallets, allowing us to uncover real friction rather than observe a sanitized demo path.
From these sessions, we create a map linking every drop-off point to a specific cause: unclear framing of gas costs, ambiguous network selection, unexplained approval steps, or copy that assumes knowledge a new user lacks. This map becomes the design and research roadmap, prioritized by the number of users each fix can actually unblock, rather than which team owns the screen.
We treat design fixes as testable hypotheses, not definitive answers. A revised onboarding flow, rewritten transaction confirmation screen, or restructured staking interface is put back in front of real users before broad release, so you are not wagering a quarter of engineering time on an assumption.
We focus closely on the trust layer in particular – the wallet-connection moment, the transaction approval screen, and the first gas fee a user encounters – because crypto products lose people in places that consumer-app design patterns were never intended to handle. Small adjustments to framing and sequencing at these moments often improve conversion more than a complete visual redesign.
We are neither a branding studio that delivers mockups and vanishes nor a research firm that creates a findings deck no one implements. We embed with your product and design team to conduct the research, ship the fixes, and re-test – ensuring the roadmap responds to what users actually do, not what a stakeholder presumed.
A typical engagement delivers a documented map of the real friction across your funnel, validated design fixes for the highest-impact issues, and a research operating rhythm your team can continue – with regular sessions involving real, non-crypto-native users – well after the handoff.
What we deliver
- Wallet-flow usability audit – session recordings and drop-off analysis across connect, network switch, and transaction approval
- Onboarding redesign tested against non-crypto-native users before broad rollout
- Trust-moment research – specific findings on what reduces hesitation at wallet connection and transaction approval
- A recurring research cadence your product team owns after the engagement
The feature costing you the most users is not one you are missing – it is the gas estimate screen no one user-tested beyond your own Discord.
Our Methodology
The first 30 days focus on discovery: moderated sessions spanning different levels of crypto familiarity, a complete funnel audit connected to session recordings, and a prioritized set of friction points ranked by the number of users each one blocks, rather than internal opinions about importance.
The next 30 days focus on design and validation. We develop fixes for the top three or four friction points, test each with real users before release, and iterate on anything that fails to meet the bar. This is typically when the connect-wallet and transaction-approval screens are rebuilt, because these are the moments where trust breaks down most severely for new users.
The final 30 days cover rollout and handoff – releasing validated changes, measuring funnel lift, and establishing a lightweight research process your team can independently use for future features. By day 90, you have a measurably improved onboarding funnel and a repeatable system for catching usability issues before release, rather than after support tickets accumulate.
Our Approach
Engagements are structured as 90-day sprints: research and auditing during month one, design and validation in month two, followed by rollout and handoff in month three. After the first sprint validates the process, most teams bring us back for another sprint centered on their next major feature launch.
You work with a small embedded team – a design researcher responsible for sessions and analysis, alongside a product designer who translates findings into fixes ready to ship. No account management layer separates you from the people doing the work.
We hold weekly working sessions with your product and engineering leads, rather than providing a monthly readout. Findings are shared as they emerge, supported by session recordings and direct quotes, instead of being condensed into a deck that strips away the nuance of what a real user said or did.
You can expect direct access to the raw research, not conclusions alone, and a team that will say when a proposed fix does not address the real problem rather than ship it simply because it was already scoped.
- Improved wallet-connect and onboarding completion rates
- Fewer support tickets tied to confusing transaction flows
- A design process that catches usability problems before shipping
- Research findings your whole product team can act on, not just design
If your crypto / defi company needs product design & research leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a product design and research engagement cost for a crypto or DeFi company?
Most engagements cost $18K-$40K for a 90-day sprint, depending on how many user segments are tested and the number of product flows included in scope. That is considerably less than hiring a full-time research lead and senior product designer, and the work is scoped around defined friction points instead of an open-ended retainer. Cost is driven mainly by the number of distinct flows – onboarding, staking, governance – requiring dedicated research.
How soon will we see results from a product design and research engagement?
Research findings generally begin to emerge within the first two to three weeks after sessions start. Validated design fixes typically ship by day 60, with funnel lift becoming measurable within a few weeks of rollout because crypto onboarding funnels move quickly enough to produce an early signal. Confirming the full retention impact requires a complete sprint.
How does the product design and research team work with our existing staff?
We operate directly within your product and design tools, joining your current sprint planning instead of creating a separate process. Your engineers implement the fixes we validate; there is no need to hand over your codebase or replace your design team. Weekly syncs ensure research findings feed directly into your existing roadmap.
How is Winston Francois different from a conventional product design agency?
Most agencies provide mockups built on consumer-app best practices that were never tested for wallet connections or gas fees. We start with research tailored to crypto's real trust and complexity challenges, then test every fix with actual users before considering it complete. We function as an embedded team, not as a vendor delivering a handoff.
How is ROI measured for a product design and research engagement?
We measure funnel completion at every stage – wallet connect, network switch, transaction approval – both before and after each fix goes live. We also monitor support ticket volume related to onboarding confusion and task success rates at the session level during moderated testing. These metrics are reported every week rather than bundled into a quarterly summary.
Which type of crypto or DeFi company is best suited to this service?
This service suits protocols and platforms beyond initial launch that have real usage data revealing drop-off, but lack a dedicated research function to determine why. It is particularly well suited to teams planning a major feature release or expanding beyond crypto-native users. We begin with a funnel audit to identify where the greatest friction truly exists before defining the full engagement scope.
