Ultim Studio partnered with Sturdy Finance to help the team understand more about their users and redesign their flagship product, a lending protocol that offers its users 0% borrow APY. During the design sprint, our team engaged in qualitative research calls with users of the product and performed a full redesign in order to address all the findings.
Goal
Sturdy is a DeFi protocol that introduces a different style of lending and borrowing, one that allows people to borrow at just 0% yield. Our mission was to understand what the current pain points that users are facing are, while at the same time come up with a new design that not only solves those pain points but delights the user.
Challenge
The main challenge was explaining the question "How does Sturdy achieve 0% borrow APY?" In DeFi, 0% borrow APY is usually unheard of and Sturdy uses a novel mechanism to achieve this; they use a dynamic based APY based on how much people borrow and lend on the platform. We took one week to research the pain points of current users and spent the rest of the sprint focusing on solving these needs.
Solution
During the design sprint, our team worked side by side with the Sturdy team and listened to all their assumptions in order to test them out with real users. The output was a carefully iterated prototype that included ideas from both the team and the users, solving every pain point the user has.
During the usability tests, among many others, our team discovered that:
Users don’t understand the value proposition that Sturdy offers
Are confused when they see the Deposit APY is unusually high
Are confused when they see the Deposit APY is unusually high
We solved these by:
Created a tooltip that explains how Sturdy is able to achieve 0% borrow APY.
Created a system that explains why the pool is unbalanced therefore the Deposit APY being higher than usual.
We’ve added a footer where we showcase the audits the dapp has and how to contact the team on Discord.
After working together, Sturdy managed to:
Removed confusion of how Sturdy is able to achieve 0% APY.
TVL tripled in size to about $28M USD.
Increased revenue from platform usage.
Create a solution that was a result of teamwork rather than an individual contribution
Delighted users through a new and refreshed UI design.
Created a base for expanding the product through a solid design system.
