Border Wallets
My Role
Ux Designer
Timeline
April - August 2024
Team Members
Four Members
Skill
Product Designer, Product Stratergy, Prototyping
Border Wallets is a Bitcoin tool that helps people securely encrypt and memorize their seed phrases a safer alternative to paper backups and metal plates.
INTRODUCTION
My role was to redesign the entire user-facing experience around this product: marketing site, onboarding, documentation, and feedback flows, so that a highly technical security tool could feel understandable, trustworthy, and usable for everyday Bitcoiners.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Before the redesign, Border Wallets had a strong underlying product but a weak outer shell
Too technical: 75% of first-time visitors felt the interface and language were “too technical.”
Overwhelming content: 60% felt bombarded with information and weren’t sure where to start.
Low trust: 45% lacked confidence because security claims weren’t clearly explained.
Confusing flows: Only 30% of users completed key tasks (like understanding how Border Wallets works) on their first try.
The challenge:
Turn a complex Bitcoin security product into a clear, calm, and trustworthy experience – without dumbing down the underlying cryptography.
USER RESEARCH
Instead of guessing what “security” should look like, we studied how it is perceived.
I first talked to Bitcoin users who had tried or considered tools like Border Wallets. Their worries were always emotional before they were technical:
“This looks like a developer tool, it's not for me. I think it's a tool that developers need. Its a plugin which can used in wallets”
“The only button i felt was safe to click was - learn more”“Too many links in one space. Every time I visit it, I have to search for the release link to go to downloads”
“No platform to clear my doubts. I got a question. Is there are way to generate the 12 words using an air gapped HW and still apply them to a grid without touching your device (potentially exposing them on the web)?”
In parallel, I audited competing products and existing security-heavy sites, which featured dense jargon, dark hacker aesthetics, and scattered documentation. Almost all of them made users feel small or anxious, not empowered.
This gave the redesign a clear north star:
Border Wallets should feel like a serious tool, but talk like a calm guide, stepwise flows, human copy, and a clear narrative from “What is this?” to “I trust this enough to use it.”
PRODUCT APPROACH
To redesign Border Wallets, I treated it as four stacked layers instead of “just a website re-skin”
Lead with the story – First explain what Border Wallets is and why it exists, then move into how it works.
Turn complexity into steps – Break technical actions into small, guided screens so users never feel like they might “break” their backup.
Build learning into the product – Use curated media, docs, and feedback pages as part of the core experience, not side content.
Unify everything with one system – A shared design system (components, typography, spacing) keeps marketing, onboarding, donations, docs, and feedback feeling like one coherent product, not separate sites.
MAJOR UX FLOWS
Ux Flows
Onboarding & First-Time Understanding
The first task wasn’t to make someone “sign up,” but to make them understand what Border Wallets does:
A simplified onboarding narrative explains why you’d use Border Wallets instead of a normal seed backup.
Visual, step-based pages walk users through the idea of pattern-based backups and memorization without exposing them instantly to dense cryptography.
Microcopy reduces anxiety: users are told what’s happening, why it matters, and what the risk level is at each step.
Result: the landing + onboarding experience now feels like a guided tour instead of a cryptography lecture.
Learning & Media (Blogs, Guides, Videos)
The previous content was powerful but scattered. I restructured it into curated media hubs:
Dedicated pages for announcements, blog posts, and video tutorials, each with a consistent layout.
Scannable sections (titles, summaries, tags) so users can quickly find “How it works,” “Threat models,” or “Best practices.”
Consistent visual hierarchy to keep the brand recognizable while making long articles less intimidating.
Border Wallets starts to feel like a knowledge companion, not just a product page.
Donations, Feedback & Documentation
For a Bitcoin OSS-aligned product, community trust is crucial. I reworked three supporting flows:
Donation Pages – Clear CTAs, simple explanation of how donations support the Bitcoin ecosystem, and design that highlights transparency over hype.
Feedback Pages – Structured forms that ask about usability, clarity, and pain points in the product and content, making it easier to turn vague impressions into actionable insights.
Detailed Documentation – A comprehensive knowledge base with sections, search, and FAQs that make it easy to answer “what if” and “edge case” questions without digging through forums.
DESIGN PARAMETERS
How does it work?, What do I do next?
Security without paranoia
Visuals signal seriousness (no cartoonish UI), but avoid fear-based patterns; the tone is confident and educational.
Consistent components
Buttons, cards, headings, and info blocks were reused across onboarding, media, donation, and docs to create a coherent brand system.
Scannable content
Documented Short sections, bullets, and highlighted key phrases with bullet proof user flows.
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Trust-first layout – Clean, spaced typography and calm colours to reduce cognitive load and make complex security topics feel approachable.
Security without paranoia – Visuals signal seriousness (no cartoonish UI), but avoid fear-based patterns; the tone is confident and educational.
Stepwise storytelling – Each page answers one key question at a time: What is this?, Why should I care?, How does it work?, What do I do next?
Consistent components – Buttons, cards, headings, and info blocks reused across onboarding, media, donation, and docs to create a coherent brand system.
Scannable content – Short sections, bullets, and highlighted key phrases so users can skim and still understand the main idea.
Developer-ready design system – Tokens, components, and page templates documented for future expansion of the web experience.
PRODUCT CONSTRAINTS
Focusing on several real constraints
No existing user metrics – There was no analytics or historical usage data, so decisions relied on:
competitor analysis,
UX best practices,
and close collaboration with the Border Wallets / Bitcoin Design stakeholders.
Focused on promotional & user-facing layers – The core cryptographic product logic remained untouched. My redesign concentrated on the website, flows, messaging, and documentation around it.
No prior internal UX audits or structured feedback – This project effectively became the first UX audit, requiring us to think from a fresh “first-time visitor” perspective and propose a sustainable structure that future teams could iterate on.
CONCLUSION
The Border Wallets redesign turned a dense, highly technical security product into something ordinary Bitcoin users can actually approach, understand, and trust.
By:
simplifying onboarding and education,
restructuring content into curated media and robust documentation, and
creating clear, trustworthy donation and feedback flows,
the outer shell of Border Wallets now properly reflects the strength of the product underneath.