Blockchain Designer Profile: Christian Jeria

Designer at Metamask and uPort

How did you get involved in blockchain?

I first learned about Ethereum from Kumavis (creator of MetaMask) when we worked together at Apple. Since then, I have been investing in cryptos and following the development of Ethereum. A couple of years ago, Kumavis asked me to design a logo for MetaMask, thus the fox you see today was born. Earlier this year, Dan Finlay (Lead Developer on MetaMask) approached me for some design work on MetaMask — I quickly jumped at the opportunity. Fast forward a few months and I was offered a full-time product design role at ConsenSys.

What are you working on now?

Lately I’ve been hard at work redesigning the MetaMask experience and user interface. Currently, MetaMask is available as a browser extension, but soon we’ll be releasing a shiny new full page web experience with revamped features and capabilities. In addition to being the lead designer on MetaMask, I’ve also been contributing to the uPort identity project. This includes designing for branding and marketing efforts, mobile product design, demo website, and the developer web portal.

What is MetaMask?

MetaMask is an Ethereum wallet, identity tool (think wallet = identity) and a bridge to easily and quickly access decentralized applications.

What is uPort?

uPort is a mobile application and platform that empowers people to own their data. uPort’s vision is to build the infrastructure and systems that will enable people to own their identity, collect attestations, and share those attestations with trusted entities in a private and secure way.

What do you enjoy about designing in the blockchain space?

Blockchain technology fundamentally changes the way we think about the systems around us — the way we transfer value, how we interact with applications, the way we manage our privacy online. The systems we currently use are vulnerable, hackable, and suffer from consistent breaches.

The opportunity to help design new systems and experiences using blockchain technology excites me about this space. I’ve always been drawn to disruptive ideas that challenge the status quo — and blockchain technology precisely does this. It’s an exciting opportunity to tackle big problems and shape the future!

What are some of the challenges you face when designing for users of decentralized apps?

A challenge we’re currently facing is that we need to design for two distinct users — both technical and non-technical. At this time users of decentralized apps are mainly technical users, though we’re starting to see more and more non-technical users enter the space. Most advanced technical users want a lot of control and functionality that may be intimidating for the average user. Currently, the onramp for users to interact with decentralized apps is steep: they need to know where to buy cryptocurrency, which one to buy, how gas fees work, transferring crypto using public keys, managing their private keys, how to use it to interact with decentralized apps, and much more. This can put a lot of pressure on new users. As a designer, this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Another challenge is that this technology is evolving very fast, so conventions are hard to define. However, I am noticing patterns in how developers are using blockchain to leverage new methods for identity management. Data breaches are more and more prevalent these days, how might we use blockchain technology to create a safer internet?

As we begin to look at these new experiences, we’re starting to realize that there is so much more we can enable users to do with blockchain than buying and transferring cryptocurrencies online. We have yet to see a blockchain app reach mass adoption; however when we do, I’m confident its success will largely be attributed to its user experience.

What advice do you have for a designer new to blockchain?

If you’re interested in blockchain — do your research! Buy some Ether, get a MetaMask wallet, transfer Ether to your friends, and try to buy something with it. You’ll quickly realize how many pain points there are and how much work we still have ahead of us.