MUHAMMAD FAROOQ , HUMERA AMIN , MUHAMMAD WASEEM IQBAL
DOI: https://doi.org/Decentralized applications (dApps) are still on the rise in many areas, but at the same time, their acceptance mainly depends on the difficulty of their user interfaces (UIs). Users with high visual and interaction complexity usually have a hard time to process at all, the very UI, and finally, they leave the application. This research quantitatively compares the dApps Uniswap and Decentraland in terms of their visual UI complexity by means of a comprehensive metrics-based framework that includes usability, user engagement, transaction performance, esthetic design, behavioral patterns, and user satisfaction as criteria. Evaluating the model from a psychometric angle, the framework introduced demonstrates sufficient discriminant validity in the assessment of perceived visual UI complexity among dApps. A new dApp named StudyChain, which involves an in-app guide for onboarding, is evaluated against the now established threshold to understand if guided onboarding can actually lower UI complexity. It turns out that StudyChain not only Uniswap but Decentraland as well by a considerable number at all metrics, the highest success rate of the 94.5%, the lowest error rates of 3.5%, and transaction efficiency far superior, besides that it was also getting much more esthetic appeal and user satisfaction almost doubling the scores. A guided onboarding method can thus be seen in this study as both an ally and a way to make visual UI complexity more manageable, through faster task completion and user satisfaction winning overall. The study has come up with a quantitative framework for measuring UI complexity in dApps that can be easily replicated and it also points out the areas where Web3 usability can be improved through design.
