Overview
Emeris unified access to Cosmos ecosystem, enabling users to earn passive income through staking. But uncertainty kept most people from participating.
Role
Interface Designer
Domain
Financial
Technology
The challenge
The problem isn’t only the complexity of blockchain mechanics. It is the accumulated uncertainty created by an industry where scams, unclear information, and irreversible mistakes are common.
Concentration risk
Staking platforms required choosing one validator for all funds. If that validator had issues downtime, poor performance your entire stake was exposed.
Psychological barrier
Users lacked confidence to commit, not understanding of how staking works.
Approach
With a 2 week timeline and crypto users' privacy concerns, traditional interviews weren't feasible. I researched discussions on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and crypto forums
Fear about losing assets
Fee structure unclear
No hints when something is unclear
Lack of validator information
No clear action steps (presence of jargon)
I analysed existing staking platforms (Polkadot, Binance Staking, Keplr Wallet) to understand current market solutions.
This analysis revealed:
Information overload. Platforms showed 8+ technical metrics. Required experienced level.
Forced concentration risk. Platforms required choosing one validator for entire stake and if that validator had issues (downtime, poor performance), user's stake was exposed.
But Emeris targeted average experience users:
Active crypto users with wallets
Understand staking fundamentals
Not blockchain infrastructure experts or complete beginners
Large and scaled platforms like Binance and Polkadot serve primarily experienced users and have infrastructure to support complex data display. Their technical audience expects comprehensive metrics.
Designing for confidence, not comprehension
Guide decisions
Instead of overwhelming users with technical metrics, I focused the interface on three factors users actually care about: reliability, commission, and performance. Clear visual hierarchy made the decision feel manageable, not overwhelming.
After users select a validator and enter an amount, the interface shows their current state: single validator concentration.
The hidden problem
On that moment staking platforms typically required you to choose one validator for all your digital assets. This means if that valdiator has issues (downtime, penalties, poor performance), your entire stake is exposed. You can't spread risk. You can't hedge. You're locked into one choice.
This concentration risk kept cautious users on the sidelines, even when returns were attractive.
The solution
Before final confirmation, users review their complete distribution across validators. Seeing the full picture before committing increased user confidence.
Platform growth
User interest and early access requests increased several fold as staking features launched
Emeris became one of the first retail platforms in Cosmos offering multi validator distribution
Feature validation
Addressed the primary psychological barrier from research a fear of losing assets
Enabled users to distribute stake across validators, reducing concentrated risk and providing safer staking experience
This project taught me about designing for trust in high stakes environments. When users fear mistakes, psychological barriers matter more than feature counts.
Less can beat more when it's the right less. This taught me that strategic constraint isn't compromise, it's differentiation when aligned with what users actually need.
Users' stated problems aren't always the real problems. During research I expected to find confusion about staking mechanics based on forum complaints, but discovered psychological barriers instead. This taught me to dig deeper than surface to find underlying needs.