Seeking feedback on BlockTrades bridge interface in webwallet

[Pheonike]

Deposit/withdraw should be its on separate tab for 3rd party bridge/gateway.

[jakub]

There needs to be standardize format for all providers to follow. If they want to be fancy or unique then build their own wallet.

We should either do it in a standardized way as Pheonike suggests...

OR

...Do it the way markets are organized in the GUI: there would be an initial page where all gateway providers are listed (e.g. Blocktrades, Transwiser, Metaexchange, OpenLedger etc) and when you click on any of them you navigate to a separate page which is fully dedicated to a particular service provider and organized according to the specific offer of the provider and fully managed by the provider.
In this approach the gateway/bridge functionality will be detached from the account page and made a separate item in the top menu bar:
Dashboard | Explore | Deposit/Withdraw | Trade | Transfer


I think the second approach is much more flexible and offers a long-lasting solution which will accommodate all kinds of different gateway providers.
The way we have it now looks very chaotic even though there is really great functionality behind it.

[dannotestein]

would it be possible to show people how many accounts, how many times, and which amount in BTS is transered via a service? i am thinking that we have to show new users some kind of credibility for all the bridges and gateways, that they can judge which sercices they want to use.

I think services should be responsible for generating customer trust. This doesn't seem like a function for the wallet. And the selection of any given automated metric is likely to be a subject of dispute.

Anyways, this is only be a debate about how the "generic" wallet is represented by default, in any case. I guess it's obvious that any given hoster of the wallet can tailor the appearance and operation to their own desires.

[btstip]

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• Pheonike: has been credited 1 GREATIDEA

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[Tuck Fheman]

There needs to be standardize format for all providers to follow. If they want to be fancy or unique then build their own wallet.

#btstip "Pheonike" 1 GREATIDEA

[Shentist]

Ultimately each service provider is providing a plugin to the wallet and has their own unique needs / UI requirements.

I think the main page should be organized by service providers including logo's a brief description, and a link to their website.

This particular page has exploded faster than I had expected!  I is a nice problem to have so many service providers competing for business and integrated directly into the wallet. It certainly makes the services more discoverable.

i agree it should be organized.

would it be possible to show people how many accounts, how many times, and which amount in BTS is transered via a service? i am thinking that we have to show new users some kind of credibility for all the bridges and gateways, that they can judge which sercices they want to use.

[Pheonike]

There needs to be standardize format for all providers to follow. If they want to be fancy or unique then build their own wallet.

[bytemaster]

Ultimately each service provider is providing a plugin to the wallet and has their own unique needs / UI requirements.

I think the main page should be organized by service providers including logo's a brief description, and a link to their website.

This particular page has exploded faster than I had expected!  I is a nice problem to have so many service providers competing for business and integrated directly into the wallet. It certainly makes the services more discoverable.

[GaltReport]

It's a big improvement in terms of functionality but in terms of UX the whole Deposit/Withdraw still looks like a temporary proof-of-concept design.
I think for 80% of users it's completely unclear what's going on there.

(1) I guess most of the users don't know the difference between a bridge and a gateway. There should be some explanation added when you'd need to use either of them.
And ideally there should be two tabs - one for bridges and the other one for gateways.

(2) it's very unfortunate the the name "OpenLedger (CCEDK)" has the same color and style as the labels "Bridge" and "Gateway". It just adds to the confusion.

(3) In the deposit row for BlockTrades the last field displays something like "1HvBRB4dR9YYy4DKSUoJF3tjdQNzedpkqZ updating". What does this "updating" mean?

Someone should re-think how to make this simpler and easier to understand or it's liable to spiral out of control.  Great to have these features just need a way to present/explain them better.

[monsterer]

Why not have one single section at the top with a drop down menu that includes every FROM-->TO currency that any of these services offers?  For example, the drop down menu would have all choices and look something like this:

BTC-->OPENBTC via OpenLedger/CCEDK
BTC--->TRADE.BTC via BlockTrades
DOGE-->BTS via BlockTrades
ETH--->METAX.ETH via Metatrades
MUSE-->OPENMUSE via OpenLedger/CCEDK

I agree. The optimal design is for the user to be presented with the best deal for the conversion they want to make with the minimum of user interface navigation. So they pick the currency and then get automatically routed via the gateway/bridge with the best price without having to make a choice on company/exchange. Only after they chose should they be presented with any extra information to track their orders.

[dannotestein]

ok, "updating" problem identified by Jakub  (thanks for catching this) is fixed again after we restarted server with the new coin types. As an aside, we should be turning on wallets for NuShares and NuBits later tonight or tomorrow, at which point it will be possible to deposit and withdraw to these coins.

[dannotestein]

This is a major improvement. Great work! I had not noticed it before seeing your post here, but I will try one of these gateways right now.

Suggestions:

(1) I would put a quick explanation on top of that screen, something like:

"Please select one of the following Bridge or Gateway services. These will allow you to deposit currency directly into your wallet or withdraw from your wallet to an external address."

(2) I definitely did not notice any drop-down menus in the BlockTrades bridge area until you mentioned it. Then, clicking on LTC, I saw that it opened up some others. This does not look AT ALL like a drop down menu, nor is it obvious enough. The fonts are way too small and are not prominent in the interface. It needs a bigger and clearer button. Also, I would include a direction/instruction there, such as "Please select a currency from the drop-down menu".

(3) It is nice to have a buffet of different services, all of which are competing for our business. But a lot of users will not know or care what a bridge or gateway is. If they are comfortable navigating this, it sure is much easier than before. But scrolling down that page, it still begins to look pretty scary for someone with no clue. To make this even more user-friendly, I would also include a function at the very top that is an expansion of the Blocktrades interface.

Why not have one single section at the top with a drop down menu that includes every FROM-->TO currency that any of these services offers?  For example, the drop down menu would have all choices and look something like this:

BTC-->OPENBTC via OpenLedger/CCEDK
BTC--->TRADE.BTC via BlockTrades
DOGE-->BTS via BlockTrades
ETH--->METAX.ETH via Metatrades
MUSE-->OPENMUSE via OpenLedger/CCEDK


And then when a user selects one of these pathways, the appropriate deposit address or other info would appear on the right side of the screen, as it does now within each section.

That way, no one would have to go digging for it. Once the day arrives when there are too many to list in a drop-down menu, then there could be several drop-downs in the same section, organizing the possibilities by category. The categories could be divided up by which service or by which type of currency (e.g., someone selects "BTC" from the drop-down and up come all the things you can change into from BTC). But for now, one drop-down (or two drop-downs, one for the "FROM" and one for the "TO") might do it.

This is a very exciting improvement -- thank you!

Thanks for the feedback, your suggestions should probably be added as ideas for the overhaul of the entire page. I think it's generally agreed that that needs to happen :-)To me, the current page mostly serves as a bunch of proposed interfaces (created by different people), and the eventual page should probably consolidate on one method. At that point, hopefully some text will be added to describe the functionality/usage of the final methodology (maybe having none now will lead us to the most intuitive one :-) ).

And, yes, the dark highlighting is pretty horrible on the dropdowns and editboxes, but I think we're probably stuck with it until the next release of the webwallet on Wednesday (unless some high priority issue causes an earlier release). The problem for us was that it wasn't possible to see that this was a problem until it got uploaded to openledger, since it uses a different styling than the webwallet in github.

[dannotestein]

It's a big improvement in terms of functionality but in terms of UX the whole Deposit/Withdraw still looks like a temporary proof-of-concept design.
I think for 80% of users it's completely unclear what's going on there.

(1) I guess most of the users don't know the difference between a bridge and a gateway. There should be some explanation added when you'd need to use either of them.
And ideally there should be two tabs - one for bridges and the other one for gateways.

(2) it's very unfortunate the the name "OpenLedger (CCEDK)" has the same color and style as the labels "Bridge" and "Gateway". It just adds to the confusion.

(3) In the deposit row for BlockTrades the last field displays something like "1HvBRB4dR9YYy4DKSUoJF3tjdQNzedpkqZ updating". What does this "updating" mean?

1) I've never been terribly fond of the whole bridge/gateway distinction myself, but we just went with the terminology/layout that was already there in the wallet. I think long term we definitely need to improve the overall page (and there is a github issue for this task).
2) OpenLedger title has a different styling because it's not a clickable link I think. Probably it should be made a clickable link, but we didn't want to mess with someone else's marketing (e.g. if it is a link, where should it be pointed).
3) That updating indicates a problem with the blocktrades web site in this case (normally it displays the max suggested deposit limit). Unfortunately, we were just in the process of adding support for new coin types (NuBits and NuShares) and new market paths when I made this request and there was a problem with the addition of the new coin types (just my luck I guess). Things should be sorted out shortly.

[jakub]

It's a big improvement in terms of functionality but in terms of UX the whole Deposit/Withdraw still looks like a temporary proof-of-concept design.
I think for 80% of users it's completely unclear what's going on there.

(1) I guess most of the users don't know the difference between a bridge and a gateway. There should be some explanation added when you'd need to use either of them.
And ideally there should be two tabs - one for bridges and the other one for gateways.

(2) it's very unfortunate the the name "OpenLedger (CCEDK)" has the same color and style as the labels "Bridge" and "Gateway". It just adds to the confusion.

(3) In the deposit row for BlockTrades the last field displays something like "1HvBRB4dR9YYy4DKSUoJF3tjdQNzedpkqZ updating". What does this "updating" mean?

[donkeypong]

This is a major improvement. Great work! I had not noticed it before seeing your post here, but I will try one of these gateways right now.

Suggestions:

(1) I would put a quick explanation on top of that screen, something like:

"Please select one of the following Bridge or Gateway services. These will allow you to deposit currency directly into your wallet or withdraw from your wallet to an external address."

(2) I definitely did not notice any drop-down menus in the BlockTrades bridge area until you mentioned it. Then, clicking on LTC, I saw that it opened up some others. This does not look AT ALL like a drop down menu, nor is it obvious enough. The fonts are way too small and are not prominent in the interface. It needs a bigger and clearer button. Also, I would include a direction/instruction there, such as "Please select a currency from the drop-down menu".

(3) It is nice to have a buffet of different services, all of which are competing for our business. But a lot of users will not know or care what a bridge or gateway is. If they are comfortable navigating this, it sure is much easier than before. But scrolling down that page, it still begins to look pretty scary for someone with no clue. To make this even more user-friendly, I would also include a function at the very top that is an expansion of the Blocktrades interface.

Why not have one single section at the top with a drop down menu that includes every FROM-->TO currency that any of these services offers?  For example, the drop down menu would have all choices and look something like this:

BTC-->OPENBTC via OpenLedger/CCEDK
BTC--->TRADE.BTC via BlockTrades
DOGE-->BTS via BlockTrades
ETH--->METAX.ETH via Metatrades
MUSE-->OPENMUSE via OpenLedger/CCEDK


And then when a user selects one of these pathways, the appropriate deposit address or other info would appear on the right side of the screen, as it does now within each section.

That way, no one would have to go digging for it. Once the day arrives when there are too many to list in a drop-down menu, then there could be several drop-downs in the same section, organizing the possibilities by category. The categories could be divided up by which service or by which type of currency (e.g., someone selects "BTC" from the drop-down and up come all the things you can change into from BTC). But for now, one drop-down (or two drop-downs, one for the "FROM" and one for the "TO") might do it.

This is a very exciting improvement -- thank you!