Crypto checkout audit

From brief to discussible concepts in 8 hours

Understanding the landscape

Before sketching anything, I needed to understand what "good" looks like in this space. Crypto checkouts sit in an odd position - they need the trust cues of traditional payment flows but handle unfamiliar concepts like wallet selection and network fees. I spent roughly half my time on research: benchmarking industry patterns, reviewing Baymard's checkout guidelines, and documenting the existing experience.

This wasn't procrastination - it was building the foundation for defensible recommendations.

Positioning against the visual language of fintech leaders

The company's marketing borrows visual language from Stripe and Modulr - the gradient blobs, the floating UI mockups. That's fine for the homepage, but it sets expectations. If your brand says "we're as polished as Stripe," your checkout needs to deliver. I documented this not as criticism but as context: the benchmark they've implicitly set for themselves.

The checkout patterns users already expect

Most online purchases flow through Shopify or Stripe - which means users arrive with ingrained expectations about how checkouts work. The persistent order summary, the predictable step sequence, the restrained merchant branding.I documented these not as competitors but as conventions. Any crypto checkout that ignores them is fighting learned behaviour as well as solving its own problems.

Baymard's research as a diagnostic lens

The Baymard Institute has tested checkout UX more rigorously than anyone.I pulled relevant findings - field labelling, validation patterns, form layout - and used them as a checklist against the current implementation. This isn't about slavishly following guidelines; it's about knowing which battles are already won so I can focus on the crypto-specific problems.

The obvious problem: it doesn't work on mobile

The demo checkout loads as a popover that doesn't resize properly on mobile devices. Content gets clipped, touch targets overlap, the experience breaks. This isn't a UX subtlety - it's a bug. I documented it because sometimes the most important finding is the simplest one.

Shaping the solution

With the research done, I had about four hours left to analyse the actual user journey, identify the key pain points, and develop initial concepts. The goal wasn't a polished prototype - it was something we could discuss in a 60-minute session. Wireframes as conversation starters, not deliverables. This is where the morning's benchmarking pays off: every recommendation could be grounded in evidence, not opinion.

Mapping the journey and marking the friction

I walked through the checkout flow repeatedly, annotating where I hesitated, where information was missing, and where the interaction model felt unfamiliar. The orange annotations in this walkthrough mark moments I wanted to discuss: Why does the popover exist? What happens if I select the wrong coin? Why is there a QR code when I'm already on my phone?

Questions before wireframes

I captured open questions alongside the wireframe concepts - things I couldn't answer from the demo alone. How savvy are the users? Is this an invoice, an offer, or a quote? Can we ditch the popover entirely? These aren't gaps in my analysis; they're the right questions to bring to a design discussion. Assumptions need to be surfaced, not buried.

Two concepts, same constraint

Both initial concepts worked within the existing popover model - the goal was improvement, not revolution. Concept 1 stripped the UI back to a receipt-style structure with a sensible default and expandable options. Concept 2 showed everything upfront with search and filtering. Different trade-offs, same foundation. The point was giving the team concrete options to react to, not a single "right answer."

The wildcard: what if crypto was just another payment method?

One concept pushed further: what if the checkout wasn't a separate experience at all? If crypto payment could integrate into existing Stripe-based checkouts - maybe even Shop Pay or Google Pay? Then it becomes a payment method, not a redirect. The user's preferred coin and network stored in their account, selected with one tap. It's a bigger technical ask, but it reframes the entire product positioning.

The role went to someone with deeper crypto experience - fair enough. But this is exactly how I work when time is tight: understand the landscape, find the real problems, get to something discussible. Polish comes later. Clarity comes first.