Web3: Linking a wallet for every action in the blockchain is a migraine, said Ciao, co-founder of ICPlaza, and developers need to work hard to provide a better experience for Web3 users.
Let’s set the scene.
You are an ordinary person who finally chose to try Web3 after learning about the full opportunities of Web3. Encouraged, you choose a crypto wallet, such as Metamask, a global mainstream digital currency wallet. You can’t wait to start using your crypto tokens to access an entire library of decentralized applications (dApps), web2 applications in a web3 world.
But you will soon run into difficulties. First, you cannot use Ethereum-based crypto tokens at the dApp you want to apply. After a lot of frustrating minutes of learning, you realize it’s because dApps are built on forks. What they are Ethereum is a layer 2 chain, which means it technically supports the Ethereum main chain while being separate from it.
To work around the problem, you have to manually change the Metamask. However, things get more complicated when you pay expensive gas fees and move your funds from Ethereum to other chains.
You grit your teeth and hope you can finally actually use Dapps. It doesn’t turn out as you want, you transfer USDT, but you need ETH to pay for gas to do anything. So you additionally want to ship ETH, and pay the dizzying gas rate once more. But by now, you’re not using any of the Dapp’s features, and all the enthusiasm to try it is slowly fading away.
You don’t know what else you have to go through to experience the functionality of a Dapp, so, you ditch Web3 entirely, swear off cryptocurrency, and go back to the familiar comfort and ease of use of Web2 applications.
Web3 user experience is still in its infancy, full of unknowns and disappointments
The above scenario is an example of disappointment for new Dapps users, and many Dapps also have a rough interface, reminiscent of the Dos interface you see when you first own a computer, which makes it cumbersome to operate without technical awareness.
Also, executing functions on the Dapp should be simple, but actually buying NFTs with tokens also requires additional gas costs. Gas fees on the Ethereum chain may exceed the value of the NFT itself. If it is a branched chain, it will be more troublesome. To prepare two tokens at the same time, novice users will be overwhelmed, which greatly hinders new users from joining.
There is a lot of hype about how Web3 will lead the next era of the web. Dapps built on the blockchain are decentralized and protect the privacy of users. This is in stark contrast to the web2 where big tech companies leverage user data. While all is true, the fact remains that Dapps have significant user experience issues.
Web2 Plusses
Looking at a Web2 application, there is almost no friction in terms of user onboarding. Anyone who wants to create an account on Twitter, all they need is to fill out the details in a digital form and within seconds they have an account. If Dapps are to reach their full potential and become the next evolution of the web, the user experience needs to be seamless, continuing the Web2 user experience.
Of course, blockchain is an emerging technology, and flaws are to be expected, but that doesn’t mean Web3 developers can’t start correcting the onboarding complexities inherent in many DApps.
Gasless future
For Web3, the future appears brilliantly handiest if there may be no gas. Unfortunately, even with all our scaling solutions, gas fees won’t be completely eliminated due to the computational effort required to keep the blockchain running. However, by changing the process and method, the problem of frequent user payment can be solved periodically. In preference to requiring users to pay gas for the whole thing, they do on Dapps. At present, the profitability of Dapp is not clear and limited, and more profits are generated by gas fees, which will also lead to the reason why the gas problem has not been taken seriously by everyone. If Dapps could eliminate gas costs for users by covering or sponsoring gas costs, this would remove a major hurdle for new users who are first forays into the Web3 world.
Seamless multi-chain experience
The independent nature of different blockchains makes it difficult to navigate and interact with the space, and users need to understand the different chains, how they work, and the specific tools needed to interact with each chain. The multi-chain experience means that users don’t even need to know which chain they are on when using Dapps, they just need to simply operate and leave the rest to the Dapp.
Instead, Web3 must learn from Web2
They are saying imitation is the sincerest shape of flattery. As far as Web3 goes, imitating how Web2 developers simplify the UX experience isn’t just flattery – it’s necessary. It’s not fair to compare Web2 and Web3 applications because Web3 has been around for a short time.
But in many ways, Web2 has paved the way for Web3, and the playbook of UX design has been established. The next step now is for Web3 builders to implement the right solution in dApps, creating an easy, painless way for people who want to get involved in the Web3 movement without having to be a technologist or spend a lot of money to do it .
The future of the web is still blockchain. It just needs to remove some kinks.