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Playground · 2021–2023

Making Web3
Feel Like
Child's Play

Designing a creator and community platform where blockchain technology disappears into the experience.

Role

Lead Product Designer

Type

End-to-end UX

Year

2021–2023

Status

Shipped

Playground is a Web3 platform for creators, communities, and event attendees. It combined blockchain functionality — NFTs, crypto wallets, token rewards — with curated and creator-led experiences. The vision was ambitious. The UX problem was harder: most users had never touched a crypto wallet in their lives.

I was brought in to design the full product experience from research through delivery. The goal was a platform that could serve seasoned Web3 users and complete beginners without watering down either experience.

Collaborated with 2 UI Designers · 4 Engineers · Marketing Team · Content Team

Situation

Web3 Had a Trust Problem

Blockchain-powered platforms were growing fast, but the user experience hadn't kept pace. Every interaction that required a wallet, a signature, or a transaction created friction that most users weren't willing to push through.

Crypto felt foreign

Most potential users — event attendees, fans, creators — had no background in crypto wallets, NFTs, or blockchain. The terminology alone was a barrier before any interaction even began.

Two audiences, one product

Seasoned Web3 users expected full control and transparency. Beginners needed guardrails and guidance. Designing for one without alienating the other required a layered approach.

Rewards with no clear value

Playground Coins were central to the engagement model, but without clear context for what they were and how they worked, users didn't know what they were earning or why it mattered.

Trust at every step

Connecting a wallet, signing a transaction, or minting an NFT each required a level of trust that no existing product had earned from mainstream users. The UX had to build that trust from scratch.

The design challenge

"The goal wasn't to teach users about blockchain. It was to make blockchain invisible — so the experience felt like a great event app that happened to do remarkable things behind the scenes."

Task

Design the Entire Product Experience

My scope covered research, competitive analysis, personas, information architecture, user flows, prototyping, and UI design. The challenge was to ship something that worked for a technically diverse audience from day one.

What I was responsible for

Competitive analysis of Web3 and event platforms
User research and affinity mapping
Personas and journey mapping
Information architecture and user flows
Wallet integration UX and onboarding
UI design and interactive prototypes

The bar we set

A first-time crypto user can connect a wallet and earn Playground Coins without confusion
A seasoned Web3 user gets full visibility and control
NFTs and blockchain feel like features, not friction
Creators can build and share experiences independently

Action

Research First, Then Design

Every design decision was grounded in what we learned from users and the competitive landscape before a single screen was built.

Competitive Analysis

We audited the leading Web3 platforms alongside mainstream event and community apps — looking at how each handled wallet onboarding, token rewards, NFT display, and creator tools. The goal was to find where incumbents were losing users and where Playground could differentiate on experience quality.

Competitive audit: mapping feature gaps and UX quality across Web3 and event platforms.

User Research and Affinity Mapping

We ran interviews and surveys with creators, event attendees, and crypto-curious users. Findings were synthesized into an affinity map to surface the clearest patterns: what motivated each user type, where their confidence broke down, and what they actually needed from a platform like this.

Affinity mapping: user motivations, pain points, and behavioral patterns grouped across three distinct user types.

Creators: visibility, monetization, ownership

Attendees: discovery, rewards, social proof

Web3 natives: control, transparency, interoperability

Beginners: simplicity, safety, clear value exchange

User Flows and Architecture

We mapped the core flows for each persona separately before overlaying them to find the shared infrastructure. Wallet connection, token earning, NFT collection, and event discovery each needed a path that worked for both experienced and new users without switching modes or contexts.

Onboarding and wallet connection flow: designed for zero prior crypto experience.

Event discovery and Playground Coins earning flow: rewards integrated naturally into every interaction.

UI Design and Prototyping

We went through multiple rounds of UI design and usability testing — starting with onboarding, then the core event and reward experience, then the creator tools. Each round brought new findings back directly to the team before we moved forward. The visual language was built to feel approachable and energetic without leaning on tired crypto aesthetics.

Event experience: discovery, attendance, and reward collection designed as a single continuous flow.

Playground Coins: contextual rewards surfaced at the right moment, not buried in a separate wallet view.

Creator tools: a streamlined experience for building and publishing curated events and collectibles.

NFT collection view: ownership made tangible and shareable, without requiring any blockchain knowledge to understand.

Live on the App Store

Download Playground

Available on iOS. Join a world, or build your own.

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Go Play

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Result

Web3 for Everyone

Users who had previously found blockchain intimidating were navigating wallets, earning rewards, and collecting NFTs independently. Engagement metrics reflected an experience that actually earned trust.

Communities created

NFT tickets sold

% user engagement rate

Active members

Crypto made approachable

Users with no prior Web3 experience successfully connected wallets, earned coins, and minted NFTs without support or documentation.

Rewards that drove retention

Playground Coins created a genuine engagement loop — users returned to events and creator experiences specifically to earn and spend within the platform.

Creators unblocked

The creator tools let community builders publish and manage experiences independently, without relying on the engineering team for every update.

Strong retention signal

Users who completed onboarding showed significantly higher session frequency and returned to the platform at rates above industry baseline for Web3 apps.

"Ale Berteuris has brought his A++ game to the Playground team. His knowledge of social and community platforms and web3 have helped bring the look and feel of Playground to new levels."

Jia Ling Yang

CEO, Playground