Crypto Brand Identity

How Roman Ivanov Co-Founded and Helped Lead the Design of the Altrady Crypto Trading Software 

Who would think about UI/UX design when talking about cryptocurrency trading? For most people, crypto trading is all about numbers, charts, and a whole lot of risks. In this interview, we will discover how Roman Ivanov used design to propel Altrady to be the top crypto trading platform that is now trusted by thousands of traders worldwide. ‍

Q: Who is Roman Ivanov? ‍

 Hi! I am Roman, a professional UX designer from Ukraine. I have been in the design industry for more than a decade now - 4 years as a video design artist and 8 years as a UX designer. My past design projects have been with Digidentity, Zazmic, Boostr, and Rakuten. 

Throughout my practice, I have held onto the principle of keeping designs as simple as they can be to promote a meaningful experience among users and to maximize the utility of the products. 

Three years ago, I was given a chance to be a part of a SaaS startup through Crypto Base Scanner. This pushed me to expand my limits not just as a UX designer but also as a leader. Having co-founded crypto scanning mobile application has been such a wonderful experience that opened me to a lot of opportunities in terms of contributing to the crypto community and in developing new skills as a business leader. 

Right now, I am focused on the design of Altrady - passionately working with Benoist Claassen, our founder, and the rest of Altrady’s talented team.‍

‍Q: Considering your professional experience as a UI/UX designer, how did you gain an interest in cryptocurrency trading?

For many years, my focus was just design. Cryptocurrency trading was out of my view until my friend, Benoist, asked me to help him in designing Crypto Base Scanner’s mobile application. Yup, just like how most successful traders right now, I also had my own interesting yet humble beginnings as a cryptocurrency trader. 

With a desire to understand what users need, I had to learn cryptocurrency trading myself. I explored the different platforms available for cryptocurrency trading, familiarized myself with crypto technology, and sought the tips of more experienced traders. Surprisingly, I got hooked into trading and found myself getting profits with the help of the technology behind Crypto Base Scanner. 

I was amazed by how Benoist was able to conceptualize solutions to the most pressing problems of traders during that time. Although I was initially called in by Benoist to just do the design, I got so immersed into the project because of the potential I saw in it. I accepted the challenge of leading Crypto Base Scanner to its further heights. Looking back, I have no regrets to have been part not just of the crypto trading world but also of Altrady - now a rising leader in crypto technology. ‍

Q: How did you use UI/UX design to position Altrady as a startup that is worthy of consideration? 

R: A lot of people are unaware of how impactful good or bad design can be. And for something that is relatively new to the public, we needed to have the simplest design that can bring out the greatest functionality and the easiest experience to the users. 

I have to be honest that designing Crypto Base Scanner has been a huge challenge for me. There were very few crypto scanning applications and crypto trading tools available before that can be used as reliable sources of information, design inspiration, and reference. Among those that we have tried before, not a single app was able to efficiently address our needs as a trader.  

We used these gaps to Crypto Base Scanner’s advantage. By personally trying out crypto trading, getting insights from Benoist, and knowing the pain points of most traders, we were able to come up with a simple yet highly functional app. 

It was great that Benoist and I had the same goal - he wanted to simplify the process of buying and selling coins for more accessible trading while I wanted to provide an easy interface for traders’ ultimate experience. 

Our start with Crypto Base Scanner wasn’t perfect, but all the obstacles that we have encountered along the way have given us the right foundation for Altrady’s release. 

Throughout the years and in all my design projects, I have always held on the belief that everything can be improved. From this desire to constantly work on improving our product, we were able to create Altrady to help traders save time, streamline their trading processes, and profit from the use of automatically generated market information. ‍

Q: Considering the different persona, behavior, and trading practices of cryptocurrency traders, how did you make sure that Altrady’s design would fit such a broad spectrum of users? 

R: Design is such a complex thing - you have to consider the different aspects of the business, know every detail about the product, and understand users’ behavior to be able to create something that will be warmly embraced by the public. 

Just as most social networks, photo editing apps, and other software are not able to perfectly capture every interest of all their users, it was also impossible for Altrady. But instead of focusing on what is impossible, we were able to capitalize on the many possibilities of having an all-in-one crypto trading software for different kinds of traders. 

We did a lot of research from different crypto trading applications and service providers in the market. We also listened to the sentiments of the crypto community to understand them better. Through careful research and by practicing empathy towards traders, we were able to come up with a design that efficiently works for our users who are facing different trading challenges and who are driven by different goals. 

One of the simplest things that we did to address the problem of diverse preferences is to give our users the freedom to choose their trading layout and to pick their application theme. With Altrady, users can go from light to dark mode which is a simple feature that creates such a huge impact on the way that our traders optimize their performance. Altrady subscribers also have a complete say on how their trading page would look like. Users can choose the standard layout or create their own layout presets and rearrange the position of widgets depending on their preferences. ‍

Q: Crypto Base Scanner was already a growing brand when you introduced Altrady. What were the challenges you faced in terms of creating a separate crypto brand identity for Altrady? 

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Crypto Base Scanner was then already growing its list of subscribers with thousands of users benefitting from our cryptocurrency alerts and base notifications. But in order to progress and move towards something better, we needed to make the necessary changes and implement the needed improvements. 

As expected, we have received a lot of comments because of this. There were some users who questioned the change of name from Crypto Base Scanner to Altrady, saying that Crypto Base Scanner sounded a lot better. And there were those who got so excited with the news. 

During the initial phase of the brand launch, we had to clarify among our users that Crypto Base Scanner remains as it is - as a separate software with its own features and functions but is also integrated with the new Altrady trading app. 

Since we wanted to realize our vision of making crypto trading accessible and easier to millions of people across the globe, we had to reinvent ourselves and offer beyond what Crypto Base Scanner originally offered. 

Thinking of a new name was a fun challenge, but we ended up embracing Altrady as our new brand. Altrady, which can be read as “All Trade” which resonates the idea of completely having all we need to trade or “Alt Trade” which gives us the impression of being able to trade alt coins. ‍

Q: We’ve heard that Altrady is now transforming its corporate identity. How did you come up with this decision and what were your considerations in designing the new logo? 

We released Altrady in July 2019, and since then, we had the same logo as Crypto Base Scanner. Realizing that this was confusing to the public and was not truly reflective of our brand, we had to make the decision to transform our corporate identity. 

We needed to effectively relay to the public what Altrady is truly about - that we are everything that you need for a successful crypto trading because, with Altrady, you can automatically analyze volatile crypto markets, efficiently track your crypto portfolios, easily find profitable opportunities, and conveniently trade across multiple exchanges. 

From having candlesticks and the Bitcoin symbol in our logo, we changed that to a simpler one - a rounded lowercase letter that resembles a vortex. This new logo now better captures what Altrady truly is - an ultimate cryptocurrency trading application that acts like a vortex that easily brings you in the world of crypto trading without difficulty at all. 

Q: Do you believe that design played a significant role in Altrady’s growth? 

Definitely, the interface design is as important as the code behind it. Maybe this is also one of the reasons why Altrady has been constantly growing since our launch. Benoist may be the brains behind the code, but I am here to make sure that his intelligent innovation can be used and understood by traders from beginner to pro levels. Then add the beautiful contribution of each of our team members, and you get Altrady as your ultimate crypto trading platform. 

Altrady’s simple yet functional interface design has made users easily adapt to cryptocurrency trading without causing a huge interruptions in their daily life. By streamlining the process of trading, Altrady users get to save a lot of time and prevent troubling losses from occurring. 

Q: One of the key strengths of Altrady is its active involvement in crypto communities. How do you filter out the valid comments? 

Well, I personally think that all comments are valid. Here at Altrady, we are open to any kind of comments, and we love to hear criticisms and feedback because all these help us improve the product. Although we have a feature request channel on our online communities, we cannot grant each one of them because we also need to follow a defined strategy and roadmap for Altrady in the coming years. ‍

Q: If you were given a chance to change any of the decisions you have done for the company before, what would you change? 

Oh, I would have changed a few things if given a chance. Looking back, I realized that we could have grown much faster if we had better planning mechanisms and more efficient management of tasks. I also should have pushed for a grander marketing strategy to have allowed more people to discover our innovation. 

But since the past can no longer be taken back, I would rather focus on the future of Altrady. All the gaps that we missed filling before are now being addressed. 

Q: How do you see Altrady three years from now? 

In three years’ time, I am confident that Altrady will take the top position in the cryptocurrency trading software industry. With all the passion, hard work, and innovation we are pouring into our product, surely, millions of crypto traders worldwide would come to love Altrady as a clean, fast, and ultimately useful crypto trading app.