Wide-scale acceptance of Web3 requires easier-to-understand language about how blockchain can be used to impact people’s everyday lives.
Right now, blockchain and cryptocurrency have a two-minute rule problem: They are too complicated for most users to fully change their habits and adopt Web3 into their everyday lives.
The two-minute rule was created by productivity consultant and author David Allen, who stated that for anyone to start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Not only is Web3 a complicated concept, but the product designs are lacking — remember MS-DOS, anyone? — and require multiple steps to execute transactions. During his opening keynote speech at Circle Converge 2022 in San Francisco, the stablecoin issuer’s chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire noted, “Users don’t need to know what chain they are on or what stablecoin they are using, they just need to know that it’s a frictionless interaction.”
This user experience (UX) challenge goes all the way to communications. Currently, blockchain companies are set on relating every detail about their technology as if speaking to another technologist — quickly putting your average person right to sleep. These barriers create far more friction than most users are willing to put up with and thus create high attrition.
I worked on language simplification ad nauseam when I was a journalist writing about a complicated, niche topic for a large audience: The wine business. I constantly edited my pieces to strike a literary balance between creating new, cutting-edge stories and keeping the language and concepts relatable so readers would be inspired to try the wines I wrote about. I took these lessons to my communications firm, Man of the World Media, where my day-to-day is filled with constantly finessing clients’ messaging so that it accurately conveys their products’ highlights without losing potential users along the way.
Here are three ways to simplify a Web3 company’s messaging so that it accurately explains its product, all while creating stickier adoption.
Nailing the UX is ultimately what will entice the next billion users to adopt blockchain technology, and this is where the industry needs to do the most work. The Crypto Research and Design Lab (CRADL), whose vision is to champion a humanity-centric Web3 for everyone, just released a comprehensive report called UX in Cryptocurrency.
