Love at first strike ⛹🏻: Sports Betting on web3 (And how is it different from web2)
July 2022 • Product Design • UK
The online betting industry has had a huge growth over the past few years since more number of users were bored and alone at home during the pandemic.
Here, we shed some light on how we designed, Six Sigma Sports, an online sports betting platform for millions of users around the world, while highlighting and comparing key differences of how betting is better on web3 as compared to web2.
The problems:
How might we (HMW) win the trust of users coming from web2?
HMW make wallet interactions easy to use? Why prefer wallets over user accounts?
HMW ensure a transaction experience happens smoothly?
Here’s how we made it happen in 4 strikes:
Strike 1: Why will a person choose web3 betting over web2 betting?
Having worked in the design industry for over a decade we now know that one of the main reasons people tend to be drawn to one particular brand in comparison to its peers is: Trust.
And we, as experience designers believe that trust can be gained by crafting good experience for our users.
Here’s how we worked towards building users’ trust: We worked on its appearance.
Yes, a book is judged by its cover and a brand is no different. Nielsen Norman describes this phenomenon as ‘Aesthetic-Usability’ effect, which says that beautiful things are generally perceived to be easier to use and are regarded as more valuable.
We projected that Six Sigma is Professional and Reliable. We did that by building a tone and design language that portrays the same.
These screens show how we chose sporty elements, shapes, icons, colors and bold fonts to convey the product offering and USPs.
Everything was chosen carefully and intentionally.
This choice also comes down to some unique benefits that only web3 can provide over web2: Peace of mind and security of chain, instant transaction finality and payout via smart contracts.
All these are new things for users coming from web2, so we’ve given informational nudges throughout the product which guide and hand-hold the users through their journey within the product.
Nuances like the design of the match cards and the design of the odd selection buttons – everything has been crafted to be more usable than the existing web2 betting counterparts.
Here’s a closeup with details:
Strike 2: Why go into hassle of wallets?
We have been using Web2 space for over a decade now and we know that you are used to it.
There are couple of cons that come with Web2 too, hard to digest? Give us a minute.
In web2 sometimes, payment service may decide to not allow payments for certain types of work. Here web3 comes with an advantage that Web3 payment apps require no personal data and can’t prevent payments.
We knew that many of our users are adapted to web2 and adapting to web3 might take some time. So, we designed wallet connection process in easy to understand and assimilate language and steps for naive users to carry.
One click sign in.
Using SGE instead of Fiat.
Users from web2 are familiar with credit cards, Paypal, etc. web2 uses Fiat money while Web3 is token based. We know this concept might intimidate some of our users too. So, we took extra care and designed this in simple to follow steps so that new users can use and have equally seamless experience too!
In web3, money stored in YOUR wallet, that YOU own.
Strike 3: Transactions on a global safe ledger, no manipulation possible
Settlement time in normal betting apps extends to some days.
Since Six Sigma Sports uses blockchain technology for betting, settlement time is close to zero. That means, it provides instant finality in bets settlements.
We therefore had to design in a way so that new users had to be acquainted with this fast paced process.
Also the real challenge for us was that we had to design for users to be updated with these live bets, and bet statuses.
Strike 4: You can be the house, the bettor, or both
Those who are afraid of taking risks might use low-risk choices such as playing as house, which allows you to put your money into a pool and earn interest.
Switching between these mode is as easy as toggling the switch on the header – the color of the whole app changes slightly to visually convey to the user that they’re now in house mode.
Summary
Making a web3 product is not easy, but if you do it right then you can win the trust of users coming from web2.
