Vocdoni SaaS — Web 2.5 Voting Platform Redesign
Vocdoni SaaS — Web 2.5 Voting Platform Redesign
Vocdoni SaaS — Web 2.5 Voting Platform Redesign
SaaS · Mobile-first · B2B2C · 2021 - 2022
SaaS · Mobile-first · B2B2C · 2021 - 2022
SaaS · Mobile-first · B2B2C · 2021 - 2022
Taking a blockchain voting platform from a limited MVP to a market-fit product — designing a dual-interface experience for organisations and voters, abstracting all Web3 complexity — achieving 82% drop-off reduction on authentication and 95%+ vote submission rate in under 7 months.
Taking a blockchain voting platform from a limited MVP to a market-fit product — designing a dual-interface experience for organisations and voters, abstracting all Web3 complexity — achieving 82% drop-off reduction on authentication and 95%+ vote submission rate in under 7 months.
Taking a blockchain voting platform from a limited MVP to a market-fit product — designing a dual-interface experience for organisations and voters, abstracting all Web3 complexity — achieving 82% drop-off reduction on authentication and 95%+ vote submission rate in under 7 months.
Context
Context
Trustworthy Voting. Without the Black Box.
Trustworthy Voting. Without the Black Box.
Trustworthy Voting. Without the Black Box.
Vocdoni is a blockchain-based online voting platform that helps organisations run secure, private, and transparent elections. Unlike traditional voting systems — opaque, costly, and impossible to audit — Vocdoni's results are verifiable by anyone, on-chain.
When I joined, the product was at MVP stage. It supported only basic Yes / No / Abstain voting, had no mobile experience, and was not yet ready for public release. My role as Lead Product Designer was to take it to market — from MVP to a product capable of achieving product-market fit.
Vocdoni is a blockchain-based online voting platform that helps organisations run secure, private, and transparent elections. Unlike traditional voting systems — opaque, costly, and impossible to audit — Vocdoni's results are verifiable by anyone, on-chain.
When I joined, the product was at MVP stage. It supported only basic Yes / No / Abstain voting, had no mobile experience, and was not yet ready for public release. My role as Lead Product Designer was to take it to market — from MVP to a product capable of achieving product-market fit.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Lead Product Designer
Lead Product Designer
Product Discovery / Research
Interface design & Prototyping
Interaction Design
Documentation
Product Discovery / Research
Interface design & Prototyping
Interaction Design
Documentation
Team
Myself (Lead Product Designer)
Brand Designer
Product Manager
3 Engineers
Myself (Lead Product Designer)
Brand Designer
Product Manager
3 Engineers
Tools
Figma
Vocdoni Design System
Miro (UX Research)
User survey - Typeform
Figma
Vocdoni Design System
Miro (UX Research)
User survey - Typeform
The Problem
The Problem
Web3 Power. Zero Web3 Friction.
Web3 Power. Zero Web3 Friction.
Web3 Power. Zero Web3 Friction.
The core challenge wasn't design in the traditional sense. Vocdoni sits at the intersection of two entirely different user types — organisations creating and managing votes, and citizens casting them — and serves both on the same platform.
For organisations, the complexity was functional: advanced voting types like weighted voting and quadratic voting needed to be configurable without requiring technical knowledge. For voters, the challenge was different and more critical: the blockchain had to be completely invisible. No wallet connections. No transaction signing. No jargon. Just a vote.
The north star: let organisations run on-chain elections in minutes, and let anyone cast a vote in seconds — without either group knowing blockchain is involved.
The core challenge wasn't design in the traditional sense. Vocdoni sits at the intersection of two entirely different user types — organisations creating and managing votes, and citizens casting them — and serves both on the same platform.
For organisations, the complexity was functional: advanced voting types like weighted voting and quadratic voting needed to be configurable without requiring technical knowledge. For voters, the challenge was different and more critical: the blockchain had to be completely invisible. No wallet connections. No transaction signing. No jargon. Just a vote.
The north star: let organisations run on-chain elections in minutes, and let anyone cast a vote in seconds — without either group knowing blockchain is involved.
Constraints
Constraints
Two Audiences. Two Interfaces. One System.
Two Audiences. Two Interfaces. One System.
Two Audiences. Two Interfaces. One System.
Blockchain technical boundaries. Every feature touched smart contract logic. Feasibility of each flow had to be validated with engineers before design could progress — blockchain constraints shaped interaction decisions at every stage of the process.
Advanced voting complexity. Weighted voting and quadratic voting are genuinely difficult concepts. Making them intuitive for non-technical business users — without dumbing them down to the point of being unusable — required careful information architecture and progressive disclosure.
Mobile parity from scratch. The MVP had no mobile experience. Building responsive parity across desktop and mobile simultaneously, rather than sequentially, added significant design complexity throughout the project.
Authentication without crypto. Voter authentication needed to work without wallets or blockchain accounts. The solution had to be frictionless, trustworthy, and verifiable — using SMS code verification as the credential layer.
Blockchain technical boundaries. Every feature touched smart contract logic. Feasibility of each flow had to be validated with engineers before design could progress — blockchain constraints shaped interaction decisions at every stage of the process.
Advanced voting complexity. Weighted voting and quadratic voting are genuinely difficult concepts. Making them intuitive for non-technical business users — without dumbing them down to the point of being unusable — required careful information architecture and progressive disclosure.
Mobile parity from scratch. The MVP had no mobile experience. Building responsive parity across desktop and mobile simultaneously, rather than sequentially, added significant design complexity throughout the project.
Authentication without crypto. Voter authentication needed to work without wallets or blockchain accounts. The solution had to be frictionless, trustworthy, and verifiable — using SMS code verification as the credential layer.
The Turning Point
The Turning Point
The Backend Was Also a Product
The Backend Was Also a Product
The Backend Was Also a Product
Early in the project, the focus was on the consumer voting interface — the experience voters see. But it became clear quickly that the organisation-facing backend was equally product-critical. If organisations couldn't create, configure, and monitor votes intuitively, they'd never reach their voters in the first place.
This reframe meant designing two cohesive products in parallel — a backend management interface for organisations and a consumer voting interface for voters — that had to feel architecturally connected without sharing the same complexity level. The dashboard, live analytics, vote creation flow, and results views were as much the product as the voting screen itself.
Early in the project, the focus was on the consumer voting interface — the experience voters see. But it became clear quickly that the organisation-facing backend was equally product-critical. If organisations couldn't create, configure, and monitor votes intuitively, they'd never reach their voters in the first place.
This reframe meant designing two cohesive products in parallel — a backend management interface for organisations and a consumer voting interface for voters — that had to feel architecturally connected without sharing the same complexity level. The dashboard, live analytics, vote creation flow, and results views were as much the product as the voting screen itself.
The Process
The Process
Research, Architecture, Then Pixels
Research, Architecture, Then Pixels
Research, Architecture, Then Pixels
A UX research and competitive analysis phase identified opportunities across the existing voting platform landscape — most of which were desktop-only, visually dated, and technically opaque. The gap Vocdoni could own was clear: mobile-first, blockchain-abstracted, and visually credible enough for enterprise clients.
IA and task flows were mapped in Miro before any UI work began — separately for the business backend and the consumer interface, then reviewed against the engineering feasibility constraints. Four new voting types were scoped and designed: Anonymous, Weighted, Step-by-Step, and Quadratic voting.
Remote user testing using Maze was conducted before and after release, with both business users and consumer voters participating. Results directly informed the authentication flow redesign, which became the single biggest lever for consumer drop-off reduction.
Accessibility was applied at the system level — colour contrast optimised across all components to WCAG 2.2 standards, ensuring the platform was compliant without sacrificing visual quality.
A UX research and competitive analysis phase identified opportunities across the existing voting platform landscape — most of which were desktop-only, visually dated, and technically opaque. The gap Vocdoni could own was clear: mobile-first, blockchain-abstracted, and visually credible enough for enterprise clients.
IA and task flows were mapped in Miro before any UI work began — separately for the business backend and the consumer interface, then reviewed against the engineering feasibility constraints. Four new voting types were scoped and designed: Anonymous, Weighted, Step-by-Step, and Quadratic voting.
Remote user testing using Maze was conducted before and after release, with both business users and consumer voters participating. Results directly informed the authentication flow redesign, which became the single biggest lever for consumer drop-off reduction.
Accessibility was applied at the system level — colour contrast optimised across all components to WCAG 2.2 standards, ensuring the platform was compliant without sacrificing visual quality.
Key Decision
Key Decision
Streamline the Vote Creation Flow or Keep Full Control
Streamline the Vote Creation Flow or Keep Full Control
Streamline the Vote Creation Flow or Keep Full Control
The vote creation process for organisations involved a significant number of settings — voting type, anonymity, step-by-step questions, results availability, census configuration, branding. The instinct from stakeholders was to surface everything on one page so businesses could see all options at once.
The counter-argument was cognitive overload. A single page with every setting in view simultaneously would create friction for first-time users and obscure the logical progression of the setup. The decision was made to break creation into contextual steps — aggregating related settings into sequential stages rather than presenting a full-page form.
Testing validated the call. Businesses reported that vote creation felt intuitive and the task was completed in under 10 minutes. The step-by-step architecture also made it possible to add advanced options like quadratic voting without making the interface feel overwhelming to organizations that didn't need them.
The vote creation process for organisations involved a significant number of settings — voting type, anonymity, step-by-step questions, results availability, census configuration, branding. The instinct from stakeholders was to surface everything on one page so businesses could see all options at once.
The counter-argument was cognitive overload. A single page with every setting in view simultaneously would create friction for first-time users and obscure the logical progression of the setup. The decision was made to break creation into contextual steps — aggregating related settings into sequential stages rather than presenting a full-page form.
Testing validated the call. Businesses reported that vote creation felt intuitive and the task was completed in under 10 minutes. The step-by-step architecture also made it possible to add advanced options like quadratic voting without making the interface feel overwhelming to organizations that didn't need them.
The Solution
The Solution
Two Products, One Platform
Two Products, One Platform
Two Products, One Platform
Organization interface (backend): A dashboard with high-level metrics for completed votes — participation rates, abstention rates, active and upcoming processes — surfaced through a colour-coded status system for instant vote state identification. Vote creation was structured as a guided multi-step flow: details, questions, settings, census, and deployment. Live voting results and analytics were accessible on the vote detail page, with PDF export for reporting. Organizations could customize the consumer voting interface with their own branding colours and logos — critical for institutional clients like sports clubs, cooperatives, and DAOs who needed white-label credibility.
Organization interface (backend): A dashboard with high-level metrics for completed votes — participation rates, abstention rates, active and upcoming processes — surfaced through a colour-coded status system for instant vote state identification. Vote creation was structured as a guided multi-step flow: details, questions, settings, census, and deployment. Live voting results and analytics were accessible on the vote detail page, with PDF export for reporting. Organizations could customize the consumer voting interface with their own branding colours and logos — critical for institutional clients like sports clubs, cooperatives, and DAOs who needed white-label credibility.
Consumer voting interface: A fully responsive layout designed for seamless voting across all device sizes. Authentication was collapsed into a single step using SMS code verification — eliminating the multi-step account creation that had been the primary source of drop-off.
The voting flow was reduced to two stages: authenticate and submit. Post-submission, voters could verify their selection and optionally check their on-chain transaction through the Vocdoni block explorer — making the blockchain's presence a feature, not a requirement.
Consumer voting interface: A fully responsive layout designed for seamless voting across all device sizes. Authentication was collapsed into a single step using SMS code verification — eliminating the multi-step account creation that had been the primary source of drop-off.
The voting flow was reduced to two stages: authenticate and submit. Post-submission, voters could verify their selection and optionally check their on-chain transaction through the Vocdoni block explorer — making the blockchain's presence a feature, not a requirement.
