I am excited to have joined Electric Capital, where I am working with founders in crypto and Web3. I am helping companies hire strong designers, successfully integrate design into their work flows, and think about their design culture. As an industry, crypto is often focused on technology first, and there is a lot of opportunity for design to help bridge the technology to simple, elegant user experiences. 

In the middle of a bear market, there is a lot of skepticism around crypto. But for those of us who live in countries with robust economies, it is easy to take things like stable currencies, reliable banks, or 401ks for granted. That is far from true around the world, and I believe there is enormous potential to harness crypto technologies and craft them into simple, powerful user experiences. 

As I have explored products across Web3, I have been surprised by how difficult so many basic tasks are, like buying cryptocurrency, setting up a wallet, or finding NFTs. The user experiences mimic the complexity of the underlying systems. This is often true with new technology and has been the historical norm. 

I spent almost twenty years as a Product Designer and Design Leader at Google, YouTube, and Facebook, where I tackled making highly complex systems simple and usable. The early experiences for search, video, and social were clunky and complicated until we abstracted away the underlying technology in favor of simple, powerful experiences.

In 2007, the interactivity of Google Maps was still novel and we had a huge, ever-growing amount of data we could show at any time (roads, labels, routes, transit stops, traffic, pins, businesses, reviews, photos, parks, landmarks, etc.). We had to create a thoughtful system to display enough information to enhance, but not complicate the experience. We developed a dynamic system of colors, lines, contrast, typography, and overlays to seamlessly display the most relevant information for different zoom levels and contexts. Google Maps has continued to be iterated on elegantly across mobile and desktop, but underneath the seemingly intuitive interactions are complex data systems and intentionally simple, consistent designs.

Often the technology does lead, and I saw this pattern repeat across Google Search, YouTube, and Facebook's profile, privacy and social impact products. For these products, the early implementation was powerful, but complex. It was simple user experiences that made them accessible to billions of people. 

I am delighted to be exploring this new frontier with the team at Electric, founders, and web3 designers. The community is filled with so many bright, creative people and I am excited to see the magic that emerges as crypto technologies become simpler and accessible to billions of people around the globe. 

For more on design + crypto follow @elizlaraki

I am excited to have joined Electric Capital, where I am working with founders in crypto and Web3. I am helping companies hire strong designers, successfully integrate design into their work flows, and think about their design culture. As an industry, crypto is often focused on technology first, and there is a lot of opportunity for design to help bridge the technology to simple, elegant user experiences. 

In the middle of a bear market, there is a lot of skepticism around crypto. But for those of us who live in countries with robust economies, it is easy to take things like stable currencies, reliable banks, or 401ks for granted. That is far from true around the world, and I believe there is enormous potential to harness crypto technologies and craft them into simple, powerful user experiences. 

As I have explored products across Web3, I have been surprised by how difficult so many basic tasks are, like buying cryptocurrency, setting up a wallet, or finding NFTs. The user experiences mimic the complexity of the underlying systems. This is often true with new technology and has been the historical norm. 

I spent almost twenty years as a Product Designer and Design Leader at Google, YouTube, and Facebook, where I tackled making highly complex systems simple and usable. The early experiences for search, video, and social were clunky and complicated until we abstracted away the underlying technology in favor of simple, powerful experiences.

In 2007, the interactivity of Google Maps was still novel and we had a huge, ever-growing amount of data we could show at any time (roads, labels, routes, transit stops, traffic, pins, businesses, reviews, photos, parks, landmarks, etc.). We had to create a thoughtful system to display enough information to enhance, but not complicate the experience. We developed a dynamic system of colors, lines, contrast, typography, and overlays to seamlessly display the most relevant information for different zoom levels and contexts. Google Maps has continued to be iterated on elegantly across mobile and desktop, but underneath the seemingly intuitive interactions are complex data systems and intentionally simple, consistent designs.

Often the technology does lead, and I saw this pattern repeat across Google Search, YouTube, and Facebook's profile, privacy and social impact products. For these products, the early implementation was powerful, but complex. It was simple user experiences that made them accessible to billions of people. 

I am delighted to be exploring this new frontier with the team at Electric, founders, and web3 designers. The community is filled with so many bright, creative people and I am excited to see the magic that emerges as crypto technologies become simpler and accessible to billions of people around the globe. 

For more on design + crypto follow @elizlaraki