01 Overview
HouseToken set out to democratise real estate investment through blockchain technology. The vision was ambitious: enable users to invest in tokenised property assets, trade securely, and participate in digital real estate markets without traditional barriers.
The challenge was clear. Real estate investing is complex. Cryptocurrency is complex. Combining both risked compounding confusion and limiting adoption to highly technical users.
My goal as Founding Product Designer was to translate financial and blockchain complexity into a trustworthy, intuitive, and accessible mobile-first investment experience.
02 The Problem
Early research surfaced several critical challenges:
Users wanted clarity on returns before committing.
More than 90 percent of participants expressed that understanding potential returns upfront was their primary decision driver.
Additionally, the association with cryptocurrency created hesitation. Many users were interested in property investment but wary of blockchain mechanics.
The core problem was not technology. It was trust, clarity, and perceived risk.
03 My Role
I led the product design from concept to first release, working across strategy, research, branding, interaction design, and developer collaboration.
As an early-stage start-up, I operated across product strategy and hands-on execution.
04 Process
To deeply understand the investment lifecycle, I conducted research beyond the product team. This included visiting established investment firms such as London and Oxford Group to observe how traditional property transactions were structured.
This provided critical insight into how value, risk, and investor confidence are communicated in established markets.
I conducted one-to-one interviews with existing investors, sessions with customer support teams, focus groups exploring attitudes toward digital investment, and competitive benchmarking across fintech and crypto platforms.
Findings were categorised into pain points and prioritised using a 2x2 impact and feasibility matrix to focus on high-value opportunities.
Two major insights shaped the product direction: users needed immediate visibility of potential returns, and the crypto association created friction and hesitation.
To reduce cognitive overload, we separated experiences. The mobile app focused purely on investing and fund management. The desktop platform supported deeper trading functionality. This strategic separation reduced technical intimidation and clarified purpose per device.
User flows were mapped to ensure clarity across the full journey from onboarding to first investment. During feasibility exploration, payment complexity became a major engineering constraint. After evaluation, we partnered with Stripe to reduce build cost, increase security, and accelerate time to market.
Low-fidelity wireframes were tested to validate early assumptions. Feedback informed navigation restructuring and clearer transactional patterns.
High-fidelity prototypes were developed and tested with real users.
The phrase repeated most often during testing: Show me the money.
Returns became central to the information hierarchy, reinforcing confidence and transparency.
The product name and identity were inspired by the historical concept of "Token House," a place where trading tokens could be exchanged for legal tender.
I developed the brand identity, visual language, and early design system foundations, ensuring the product felt credible, modern, and globally relevant. Design assets and specifications were delivered via Zeplin, enabling efficient engineering handoff and consistent pattern implementation.
05 Results
The first release established both product-market credibility and improved usability in a highly regulated domain.
1
By prioritising return visibility and simplifying transactional language, confidence was built through clarity, not persuasion.
2
Restructuring buy and sell flows to mirror familiar shopping interactions decreased cognitive effort.
3
A clear brand, intuitive UX, and simplified crypto abstraction strengthened sales and investor discussions.
