INDUSTRY:
Blockchain
CLIENT:
Aftermath
YEAR:
2024
EXPERIENCE:
Product Designer
Aftermath Finance
Aftermath Finance
Aftermath Finance is a sophisticated DeFi ecosystem on Sui, offering a comprehensive suite of tools including high-frequency swaps, limit orders, and cross-chain bridging. As the UX/Product Designer, my mission was to reconcile the platform’s institutional-grade power with the accessibility required for retail adoption. By pivoting toward Intent-Based Design, I restructured the architecture to serve four distinct user personas: the Casual Swapper, the Active Trader, the Yield Seeker, and the Cross-chain User, ensuring that technical depth never compromised the user experience.
The Problem
One of the first challenges we faced was finding the right balance between Web2 familiarity and Web3 complexity. Crypto transfers come with a lot of cognitive load, long addresses, irreversible mistakes, and confusing networks. My design philosophy is that simplicity builds trust, so I pushed for an experience that removed as much friction as possible while still keeping users informed. This sparked several internal discussions about what to hide, what to explain, and how much control users really needed. By grounding our decisions in user interviews and borrowing familiar patterns from Coinbase, we aligned on a direction that prioritized intuition over technicality.
Designing the browser extension and overlay brought a different type of complexity. It was the first time both design and engineering were building something that sat directly on top of Twitter and reacted to whatever profile the user was viewing. The overlay needed to detect usernames, the extension needed to validate them, and both had to communicate seamlessly. We studied similar extensions, explored different architectural paths, and iterated together until we arrived at a version that was stable enough for V1 without creating unnecessary technical debt. It required a lot of patience and collaborative problem-solving, but it shaped a more grounded implementation plan.
A more subtle, yet insightful, conflict arose from the bulk transfer feature. My original design used horizontally scrollable cards with large tap targets to prevent mistakes, especially since money is involved. During a review, the lead developer suggested a vertically scrollable layout instead, arguing it felt more native on mobile and reduced hidden content. After talking through the trade-offs, we realized that a vertical layout aligned better with Hick’s Law: showing more information upfront actually simplified decision-making. Adjusting the design proved to be the right move, making the feature more intuitive.
In the end, these constraints didn’t hold the project back; they shaped it. Each challenge helped us refine our thinking, make smarter decisions, and build a product that was both practical and genuinely enjoyable to use. The healthy tension between design ambition and engineering feasibility ultimately led to a cleaner, more strategic release
Solution
The result is a fluid, high-conversion platform that adapts to the user’s expertise. By shifting from a "one-size-fits-all" layout to a Persona-Centric Architecture, Aftermath now provides a streamlined entry point for retail swappers without sacrificing the sub-millisecond precision required by professional traders. The final UI demonstrates that technical adaptability and clean design can coexist, driving both user retention and ecosystem growth.
At the heart of the product, Xend Global introduced a simple idea I strongly believed in: sending money to someone should be as easy as typing their Twitter username. No long wallet addresses, no anxiety about networks — just “@OpenAI → amount → send.” That interaction became the anchor that guided the rest of the experience.
As the product evolved, I extended the flow with the features users needed to complete the journey: QR and link-based payment requests, bulk transfers, a straightforward deposit path, and a smart-account wallet that kept everything stable under the hood. I also designed the Chromium extension for desktop usage, along with an overlay system that could detect usernames directly on Twitter profiles, although we intentionally moved that to a later release to avoid forcing early technical debt.
Overall, V1 was designed to be foundational. We kept it clean, intuitive, and identity-driven, making sure the basics worked seamlessly before layering on more advanced features.
