Founding Product Designer
Content
/Project
In a tech hiring ecosystem riddled with mistrust and hollow resumes, Eden Protocol reimagined talent validation as a staked integrity protocol, where skills are vouched for via crypto stakes. But as a pioneering Web3 product, Eden faced skepticism:
> How do you make abstract blockchain mechanics feel human?
> How do you convince traditional recruiters and DAO leaders to trust a system built on code and community?
The platform's early design lacked warmth, and its groundbreaking concept risked being dismissed as another crypto gimmick.
/Challenge
The protocol's cold, transactional UI clashed with its mission to foster human-led trust. Users couldn't "see" the stakes:
(1) Recruiters questioned how stakes translated to candidate reliability.
(2) Talent felt disconnected from the value of their vouched skills.
(3) Onboarding felt like a spreadsheet exercise, lacking the emotional pull of a community-driven ecosystem.
(4) The design lacked a narrative, a way to visualize integrity as a living, growing force.
/Solution
1. Building the DNA: From Founding Designer to Ecosystem Architect
(1) Defined the product's core ethos: Trust is a garden, not a spreadsheet.
(2) Championed rapid experimentation: Launched 8+ micro-products (e.g., a "Stake Map" for visualizing endorsements, a"Story Seed" feature for candidates to narrate their journeys).
2. Rapid Prototyping the Unknown
In a startup building a new category, failure was our fertilizer.
(1) Weekly Design Sprints: Shipped 40+ prototypes in 3 months, including personalized Job Boards for DAOs and tools showing how stakes compound across networks.
(2) User Testing as Ritual: Conducted 50+ guerrilla tests with developers and hiring managers.
(3) Pixel-Perfect Handoffs: Collaborated with engineers to codify Eden's UI library, ensuring even the pinkest gradients rendered flawlessly.
