As many are aware, the team has been working towards developing a new UI which will include an alternate modern design.
In this new UI, Curve users will be able to choose between the current retro design and the new one. Below is a first sneak peak at the alternative modern UI in which we tried to capture as much as possible of the Curve retro feel people are used to when visiting the protocol. Again, I want to stress that users will have the choice between the retro and modern designs.
Please also note, this alternative UI will not be made available for at least a few weeks.
Great work on the new UI . I guess it’s a fresh, more modern and mainstream look and feel, just keep it good lookin yet simple to use as we need everyone to grow, not only the techies… i think curve DeFi itself is quite a lot to chew for beginners
In my opinion it is far too retro, it looks like a cheap fork windows 95 protocol.
Also it is hard to read the text: low-slippage swapping etc with the curve logo in the background.
I think you would be served well to hire some professional designers who could do a modern slick UI, whilst still incorporating some Curve branding.
A retro UI appeals to a niche market of tech nerds, if you are keeping the current retro UI you might aswell do a modern UI that would appeal to a wider market.
I just think the windows 95 theme is a bad judgement call.
The goal was to have something still retro, we want to maintain Curve current look and not just have a bland facebook UI. Modern UI is okay but we still have a Curve identity.
Agree, just saying it’s not clearly a “Curve” logo like I feel it should? It looks like a blackhole which has kind of been used. Just speaking to that one element.
Appreciate the effort. A few feedback points as requested. I say this as an angel and a former brand-executive at a world-renowned organization, who mined his first BTC in 2013.
First off, Curve is known to be purposely complex…realizing this creates a moat where the most technically capable benefit the most. It’s a cultural thing…I get it…but at this point, if Curve is truly interested in broadening it’s appeal beyond insiders and degens, then it may be time to start considering a competitive user-friendly UI.
Specifically…
Top-line works…simple and effective.
Background is busy and distracting and does not reinforce the brand. Seems a bit senseless and put there just to have something for contrast.
Swap and tx box looks like everything else in DeFi…and a significant step back from UNI/SUSHI and others. Remember…users will compare.
Transition element gfx are poor. Element structures are simplistic and feel put together by a novice…retro is one thing, but doesn’t have to be Based to be cool. ex: cvault.finance did retro right.
(EDIT: Would also recommend a dark setting option.)
Suggest we hire a frontend designer with extensive brand and customer experience. Start by identifying your desired avatar. Then go through a comprehensive brand strategy exercise…Brand is who you are, branding is the process by which you communicate the brand, and marketing (including operational UI) are the tools by which you execute the branding strategy. Pretty straight-forward, but need to get the basics right before you can put together an effective interface. Most get it backwards.
Curve devs have the technical backend locked…now time to show the rest of the investing world you care about their participation…
Generally I like Curve’s intentionally retro branding and think the overall visual feel of this design matches it well.
I’m not sure about pure white as the background and wonder if a very light gray might feel a bit easier on the eyes.
I can’t help but feel some of the copy on the page is geared too heavily towards DeFi experts and recommend rephrasing what appears on the page to appeal to more average users. The great thing about UniSwap is that it is extremely clear why you’re on the web app and what you’re able to do.
No one is searching Google for “low slippage swapping,” and even a journalist with some crypto familiarity looking at this home page would probably have to do about 15-20 minutes of research to completely understand Curve the first time they visit.
Advanced users won’t mind simple language on the home page, but you might not capture as many new users without simpler language and a few more easy to understand sentences explaining the inexpensive, instant swap with predictable pricing and the way committing cryptocurrency to Curve can earn high yield returns and rewards.
Overall, though, I like the direction this is headed in and feel you’re close to something great!
The Curve Logo in the way it was Big and Bright it’s definetly something I miss.
It’s a bit too hidden and small now in my opinion.
I think the idea of modernizing without loosing the curve original nostalgia is awsome.
Have that said I think the implementation is not there yet , it looks bad to me not sure you guys but I was expecting to be excited and I’m not quite.
I get that we don’t want an facebook UI but have that said UI is extremely important and we shouldn’t make an UI for ourselves that were grinding literally trying to figure out what’s what for others that never used it instead.
I think we could do a play with the Curve logo colors throughout the site UI kind of like AAVE did on the “buttons” on the V2 UI looks sick to me and so easy and so simple too , something like tastefully that mixed with the original curve vibe would be it i think.
Anyway just my 2 cents just trying to help sorry if I pissed anyone along the way it was never my intention love the protocol and the team
Good luck everyone
Cheers
Since this is an alternative UI and not replacing the original UI (which I love), I think you should completely move away from the retro look on this one. Now I feel it is like going from windows 3.11 to windows 95 and it lacks the charm of the former and the original UI. Not in love with the colors either. What I do like about this UI is the enhanced focus on swapping whereas the LP part is a bit more hidden away, I also like the monochrome curve logo a lot so hope you can implement that, but not necessarily like it is now.
Don’t bother with showing the 1-day APY, or the 7 day APY (or keep only one of the two). Investors want to see growth over a trustworthy period of time. Replace these with 30-day APY and 90 day APY.
The problem with too many yield sites is they show some number that keeps changing - so investors feel it’s a bait and switch. Think: Harvest.
Also - the APY you’re showing- is this aggregate? Fees? For CRV rewards? Not clear. My experience on Curve today is there is too much representation of Fees APY data (and related like: Volume) which is mostly irrelevant because Fees makes up a small portion of returns. I would emphasize aggregate returns and CRV returns.
I have more than 5 years experience as a professional UX designer. As far as I can tell from these comments, people are having a difficult time separating out visual design and usability.
Visuals
The visual design is actually very good, and in my opinion a distinctive piece of Curve’s brand. I’d even go as far as to say it’s iconic for the whole of DeFi.
I can understand that some find it over the top. I would suggest keeping the current design as the default option, and having a less extreme version as an alternative. This might seem unusual, but is not significantly different to supporting light and dark mode. This adds a small amount to the overhead for Curve’s frontend devs, but with JS style objects it should be trivial.
In terms of an alternative design, my suggestions would be to use a clean reference like 0x’s Matcha, or Uniswap.
I think what we should really be discussing is usability. And more than specific usability issues, the problem lies with process. My impression is that the process in the core team is: dev has a new idea, needs to support it in the frontend, bam – let’s get something up there. This has led to a UI which is bloated and difficult to use.
My view is that the solution here requires a much more diligent process that involves having a UX professional think through the UI from the ground up. As new features arise, they are woven in thoughtfully.
I agree what @oaksprout said, have 2 alternative UIs:
current retro theme for techies like us
a more “general/wide-used” modernized UI (like Uniswap v2 or Matcha or Zapper) for broader audiences (considering majority of current users find it pleasing)
I understand you want to keep Curve identity but this new UI just “feels like an update from win95 to win98”
Why didn’t you make competition among community? I’m sure, that community have a lot of designers. After that best works can be voted by community. And for winner will be paid reward from reward pool. For sure you can make technical task with restrictions and wishes for designers.
@charlie_eth, this design appears to be quite a bit different from some of the original designs that I saw earlier. The earlier ones appear to be a little bit less retro (it still pay homage to the current site) and more polished (similar to Aave v2). It might be worth show casing those to the community to get their thoughts?
. I guess it’s a fresh, more modern and mainstream look and feel, just keep it good lookin yet simple to use as we need everyone to grow, not only the techies… i think curve DeFi itself is quite a lot to chew for beginners
It’s executed well, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it gets to the heart of the problem.