Valorem - MUXA Design Studio

On-chain trading made easy

Efficient, transparent, and free DeFi derivatives markets do not exist.

Valorem invited me to join their design sprint to help them shape their product strategy. They wanted to create a prototype to help them communicate their value proposition at ETH Denver and get early feedback before launching.

We met in the metaverse daily during the design sprint for 1 week using VR. It was a truly virtually collaborative experience!

The design sprint had several outcomes: prioritized use cases, initial user flows, visual design language direction decided, and top competitors defined, among others.

Explore

Intensive design sprint to prioritize use cases.

Document & Ideate

Created personas and user flows.

Competitor Research

Researched similar apps and how they solve the same problems

Competitor Research

Researched similar apps – what do they do well/not, what are users complaining about.

Design & Brand

Created low and hi fidelity designs to communicate vision and ideas.

Prototype

Created workable prototypes for testing

Validate

Usability testing to gather feedback and iterate on designs.

(Design)

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During the design sprint we uncovered that there were two proto-personas, the novice and experienced Options Trader. We focused on the Novice Options Trader.

Needs

• Get started options trading easily and quickly.
• Make money with limited risk.
• Trade and write covered calls and puts.

• Gas efficient trading and writing.

• Create a hedged portfolio using covered calls and puts.

• The convenience of doing everything on one protocol instead of using multiple (simpler, makes things on-chain less messy).

• Doesn’t want others to know about Valorem

Gains

• Consumer grade UX.

• Lower premia than competitors due to market maker competition.

• Can invest in partial ‘stocks’.

• Easy to get started and develop trading skills.

• Ability to trade options on a broad range of assets, with a simple and clear user experience and transparent backend that aggregates across protocols and platforms (not chains).

• Lower risk, re oracles and solvency.

• Ability to earn additional income from trading options.

Validate

Usability testing to gather feedback and iterate on designs.

(Design)

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Pain points

• Doesn’t know where to start trading.

• Doesn’t know what trading platform to trust.

– It’s difficult to truly hedge yourself without jumping between protocol ecosystems.
– Valorem doesn’t have time in the market
– Lack of audits.

• Limited knowledge of options trading & little classical finance literacy.

• Regulatory restriction in US and EU.

• Overwhelmed by data, numbers, charts, etc.

• Anxiety about trading with digital assets

Goals

• Make extra money in the short term to support his lifestyle.

• Wants to make money with limited risk.

• Wants to be a good trader and understand what he’s doing.

Validate

Usability testing to gather feedback and iterate on designs.

(Design)

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Hobbyist trader. Has previous trading experience in classical finance. Previous Robinhood user, wants to start investing in options to earn additional income as a result of success stories he has heard about. Feels some FUD due to novelty of trading with digital assets, security risks, and inexperience as an options trader.