Existing State
A type of contract where users agree to sell a particular asset at a predetermined point in time.
11,000 users are searching for derivatives while in Coinbase Standard where they are not discoverable or accessible. Users are getting dead-ended right away and end up churning.
Allow users to search for derivatives including commodities such as oil/gold and crypto futures
Clearly indicate where derivatives are found and reroute users to Advanced?
Include derivatives without disrupting the experience of those who it is not relevant to
Users should be able to view the breadth of Coinbase's offerings from anywhere in the product. Through research, we learned that 51% of Advanced traders also use Standard mode, thus the modes are not mutually exclusive.
I had no idea there was even another mode 🤯
Ahh, so that's where it is!
I dove into market research to better understand the general opportunity and how Coinbase is currently doing in the market. Anchoring to this data helped me advocate for design decisions down the line and explain the gap.
From a business perspective, we had only 13,000 users trading derivatives in the US or 0.24% of Coinbase users, despite derivatives accounting for 78.2% of global crypto trading volume. There’s an untapped market here, and improving discoverability brings us closer to reaching that 78.2%.
By default, a user will land in Standard mode. Once they open the search container, they see an infinite scroll and they can look through the 23,000 assets we have on Standard, or they can search for a derivative. If they search for a derivative like gold, they get no results. This results in users thinking that Coinbase doesn't offer the ability to trade gold, but it does, just on another mode.
Existing State
Card Upsell
Segmented Results
The existing state offers infinite scroll across Standard assets, but it isn't a true global search.
A card upsell matched existing patterns and improved discoverability, but it still wasn't global search—and it pushed Standard results further down.
Segmented containers separated Standard and Advanced clearly, but the nested two-container pattern felt inconsistent with familiar search patterns.
Final Solution: Filter & Banner
Clear separation of results on Standard and Advanced
Consistency with existing visual and interaction patterns
Non-dismissible banner informing users derivatives are traded on Advanced
The next design decision was identifying what content we should include in each cell. Derivatives and standard cryptocurrency have different pieces of information. We need to include more information but are confined to the same width and height.
Final Solution: Contract Name & Ticker
Consistent with content on Advanced
Technical labelling functions as a guardrail
Provides all relevant information for the user
Today, users can switch between modes as easy as a toggle switch. We want to improve discoverability for users like our graduating standard trader and advanced trader, but we don't want the standard trader to get lost in Advanced mode.
Our user research team was worried that doing this would take standard users to Advanced accidentally. They'd become lost, and exit the product completely. Secondary research via tools like Reddit amplified this.
In short I'm getting into the automated world and saw the "zero trading fees" for CBOne. That sounds cool, but I don't understand if for example:
Sorry noob question.
We explored a few different guardrails to ensure that we were pulling the right users into Advanced mode.
Banner informing users that futures are traded in a different mode, with technical labelling on each cell. We also expanded outside of the search container, with a modal to confirm user's intent and understanding that they will be switched to Advanced, and a tooltip to clarify how to return to Coinbase Standard.
Banner & Technical Labelling
Modal
Tooltip & Switch Indicator
Designed on a surface with 847,480 weekly users and shipped within 2024.
Accelerated conversations regarding global search, across the consumer org and sought to understand how this project impacts the organization at a systems-thinking level.
Managed complexity through presenting derivatives on Standard, providing a contextual pathway to Advanced.
I had a great time as an intern at Coinbase, learning in a high craft environment with a talented team and intern cohort. Grateful for the opportunity to join the team.
