Overview of current and new create wallet user flow
1.0 Who is this being designed for?
I am under the assumption that currently the Bitcoin core GUI primarily caters to Bitcoin power users and or developers who are okay with usability trade offs for improved security and more robustly audited code. With the GUI being one of the most secure, simple ways to run a full node, and if a goal of the Bitcoin community is to have as many full nodes as possible (which I presume it is), then we need the GUI to cater to a wider, less technical audience.
The aim of my designs is to remove friction for beginner and power users without having any security and or privacy trade offs, as well as have as minimal technical hurdles. Primarily, however, my goal is to make the GUI more beginner friendly. The Bitcoin core GUI in my view should be a benchmark / reference implementation and should not aim to be a flashy node software like umbrel or mynode – but this does not mean usability improvements cant be made. A well designed GUI will also further improve the security and privacy of its users - for this reason core should put more emphasis on design implementations. With good design, both the beginners and power users will be able to send and receive bitcoin backed by their own full node using the GUI without trade offs.
2.0 Problems being solved
The current user flow for creating a new wallet does not explain to users the types of wallets you can create or how each wallet type is different. Furthermore, the types of wallets available to create use terminology that is likely unfamiliar to many users (e.g. ‘Disable private keys’ could just be named ‘Watch Only Wallet’ which is more common and describes the same kind of wallet) - Luke Jr brang up this concern in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/17879.
The encrypt wallet option should be part of the create new wallet user flow and not optional (but also not mandatory – see below). The current initial modal that is presented does nothing to educate the user of the importance and pitfalls (not recoverable) of encrypting your wallet. This information could be included in the first modal but to keep things minimal and clean this should focus on ‘Choose your wallet type’ options whilst ‘Encrypt your wallet’ should have its on modal to fully explain why/why not to encrypt. Having encrypt wallet as part of the user flow by default will likely lead to better security of users bitcoin – An example being users will be more likely encrypt their wallets if informed why they should, this will lead to less stolen (but possibly more lost) bitcoins. If we want beginners using the GUI (meaning many more nodes) simple content changes such as this are important. Some discussions around this occurred in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/17879.
A general clean up of the UI without any drastic changes was also made. The design scope is quite limited due to Qt Widgets inheriting most components from the host OS. A cleaner UI generally leads to a smoother user experience. Nothing too fancy was done here, mostly some hierarchical separation of text, cleaner inputs and more consistent padding.
From a wider GUI perspective I chose to focus on the create new wallet feature first as creating a wallet and creating it securely is one of the most important things a bitcoin user can do so I figured this was a top priority.
3.0 Solutions
Below are the designs I have made with comments, along with the current screens for comparison. You can also view the figma file (opens in your desktop fine) if you want to view the source files and more specific details of the design. You can leave comments on my figma file by clicking the speech bubble in the top left and clicking the area of the design you want to comment on. Designs are done using the WindowsOS Qt widgets inherited styling. Linux and Mac versions will inherit their own styling but the primary elements will be consistent.
3.1 Create Wallet Meta
This is the first modal that pops up when creating a wallet, it is quite vague what it is the user needs to do here #69. Here are some questions that users likely have but are unanswered of which I aimed to answer or avoid the user having in the above new design – Why do I encrypt my wallet? It is selected by default so it must be important, but why is it important? What does disable private keys mean and why would I want that? Why is it disabled by default? What is a blank wallet and why would I want that? What are these options anyways? When I click create what exactly am I creating?
For a cleaner more practical flow, the first modal should focus on the meta of wallet creation such as the name / wallet type and move secondary steps like encrypting to a subsequent modal. Several wallet types can be created which is not clearly communicated, nor is what each of those wallet types can do. I included a standard wallet option which should be selected by default as this is likely the most common wallet type users will create. The encrypt wallet option has been moved to its own modal and should be a default option for creating any type of wallet (details in design below).
Minor Changes
The wallet name input should be pre-filled in with text such as ‘MyWallet1’ for users who want to quickly make a wallet. If the user already has say one wallet then the pre-filled text should be ‘MyWallet2,’ they have two wallets ‘MyWallet3,’ etc. This creates a quicker user flow and better user experience. Electrum wallet does this nicely when creating a new wallet.
Removed the help button ‘?’ at the top – currently does nothing and the new design should clarify any confusion the user may have- #74.
3.2 Create Wallet Encryption
Currently the encrypt wallet option is a toggled feature in the first modal, but as explained above this modal should focus on wallet meta options like wallet type/name. The encrypt wallet modal should be presented to all users after picking a wallet type regardless of the wallet type chosen and should clearly emphasize the pros and cons of encrypting. It should also still be optional to not encrypt your wallet which can be done by leaving the passphrase input blank – though the warnings should push users more towards encrypting for better security / privacy. A modal should pop up (last frame shown above) confirming the user does not want to encrypt if they leave the passphrase input blank. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/17879.
Much of this emphasis on the pros and cons of encrypting is placed AFTER the user encrypts their wallet in subsequent modals which does not make sense – the emphasis should be placed before they decide to encrypt or not. I did this by including the details from the modals that usually pop up after entering a passphrase at the header of this modal. I also added a warning in red to clearly indicate that cons of encrypting. Lastly, I added a checkbox input that must be clicked before the ‘create’ button can be clicked which finishes the wallet creation process.
Minor Changes:
Moved the passphrase visibility toggle to icons on each passphrase input. This is a cleaner, more user friendly approach. Also made each input have their own toggle rather than a toggle that just shows both inputs when clicked like in the current design. These are two new icons not currently in the GUI that will need to be added to implement this design.
3.3 Create Wallet extra redundant modals
With a more detailed encrypt wallet modal the two subsequent modals (shown above) can be removed making the create wallet process more seamless and involve less steps.
Next Steps
This was mostly a re-modelling of what currently exists - no extra frames / steps have been added. However, going forward I would also like to setup a user flow in this create wallet section of the GUI for watch only wallets and blank wallets. Such as having the ability to enter a xpub for watch only wallets in the creation process rather than in the settings after the wallet is created like it currently is.
Looking forward to some feedback!
