Turned a 7 week longitudinal study into actionable insights that informed better UX decisions across trust, onboarding, and adoption
Velatropa24Ventures CO is a Web3 ecosystem exploring digital products, governance, and community driven adoption. In this project, I led a 7 week longitudinal study with 12 participants to understand how trust, emotions, and behavior evolved over time and how those insights could shape better product decisions.
Overview
The Problem
The team needed a deeper understanding of how users built trust, reacted emotionally, and formed adoption habits over time. Without that context, it was harder to make confident UX decisions around onboarding, transparency, and long term engagement.
Role
UX Researcher
The Goal
Understand how trust forms or breaks over time, uncover behavioral and emotional barriers to adoption, and translate those findings into product direction for a more trustworthy and user centered crypto experience.
Team
Stakeholders
Product team
UX team
The Approach
I led a 7 week longitudinal research study with 12 participants, combining weekly interviews and diary studies to track changes in trust, confidence, emotional response, and crypto usage over time. Insights were synthesized continuously to inform later questions and surface patterns across weeks.
The Result
Turned longitudinal research into actionable insights that informed better UX decisions across onboarding, transparency, trust building, and real world adoption within the V24V ecosystem.
Duration
16 weeks
Method
Weekly interviews
Weekly diary studies
Designing the Research Journey
To understand how crypto behavior evolved over time, I structured the study as a longitudinal journey rather than a one time interview.
Each week focused on a different layer of user experience, from first exposure and trust building to habits, community influence, and long term reflection.
What I tracked
Trust and confidence
Emotional triggers
Adoption barriers
Behavior change over time
Key Insights
1. Trust was built slowly and lost quickly
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Users needed more than functionality to feel confident
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Transparency and clear expectations shaped trust over time
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Emotional reassurance influenced whether users stayed engaged
2. Adoption barriers were often emotional, not just technical
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Hesitation was driven by fear and uncertainty
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Fee sensitivity affected confidence and decision making
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Social influence shaped willingness to participate
3. Onboarding needed more confidence building
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Early experiences had a strong effect on long term trust
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Users needed clearer guidance during first time interactions
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Ambiguity in the early journey increased hesitation
4. Community and social context influenced behavior
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Family and peers affected how users interpreted crypto
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Local culture shaped perceptions of value and legitimacy
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Adoption decisions were influenced by more than the product itself
Research to Product Direction
Onboarding
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Needed more confidence
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Needed clearer guidance
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Informed a more guided flow
Transparency
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Uncertainty reduced trust
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Clear signals mattered
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Supported more transparent communication
Adoption
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Engagement was emotionally driven
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Social context shaped behavior
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Informed more human centered decisions
Impact
The study helped move product thinking beyond assumptions by revealing how trust, emotion, and behavior evolved over time. Rather than treating adoption as a one step decision, the research gave the team a clearer foundation for designing onboarding, transparency, and trust centered experiences.
Learning
This project reinforced that in complex spaces like Web3, user decisions are rarely driven by functionality alone. Trust, emotion, and context shape adoption just as much as interface design, and longitudinal research is often the only way to see those patterns clearly.