New version of Incognito App: More intuitive, more convenient

As recommended by the community, especially @Mike_Wagner and @zes333, we have decided to make some changes in the new Incognito Wallet app. Below is a short brief of how the app will be changed to help protect your on-chain financial privacy better. The new version of the Incognito app is expected to be launched right at the end of February 2020.

Default screen (Home page) & bottom bar

General actions in the Home page

In the old version of the app, the default screen is the account balances of privacy cryptos/coins along with the bottom bar including 4 buttons Wallet, Node, pApps, and pDEX.

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In this new version, we want our users to have the bird’s-eye view of all the privacy-protecting and privacy-related activities they can do with the Incognito Wallet. So, now the default screen is the Home page and there are 5 general actions shown there

  • Shield your crypto
  • Send anonymously
  • Receive anonymously
  • Trade anonymously
  • Invent a new privacy coin

Home%20screen

Shield your crypto, Send anonymously & Receive anonymously

Since we launched the new website and technical papers, we have seriously brought to the table the definition of ‘shielding’. You ‘shield’ your cryptos, which means you add the privacy to your Bitcoin, Ether, etc., by putting your cryptos into the Incognito network. You can also unshield your cryptos anytime by taking cryptos out of the Incognito network. Shielding is the unique and utmostly important feature of Incognito Wallet and that is why ‘Shield your crypto’ is one of the featured actions in the default screen. For another 2 actions, sending and receiving are the main ones that all crypto wallet users do every day. All the 3 actions will be explained in detail when we discuss changes in the Wallet page.

Trade anonymously & Invent a new privacy coin

So, we put another 2 general actions on the default screen, ‘Trade anonymously ‘and ‘Invent a new privacy coin’. ‘Trade anonymously’ directs you to pDEX and ‘Invent a new privacy coin’ is where you can issue a privacy coin on your own. With this new flow, the pDEX button on the bottom bar and the ‘Issue a privacy coin button’ on the account balance screen as in the old version are all gone.

Section changes on the bottom bar

A few changes have been made with the bottom bar. In specific, the ‘pApps’ and the ‘pDEX’ button are replaced by the ‘Wallet’ and the ‘Community’ button respectively.

The ‘Wallet’ button directs you to the account balance screen as in the old version. For the ‘pApps’, since there have not been many pApps in use for now, the button is taken down. The Incognito community is flourishing, so we replace the pApp by the ‘Community’ feature directing to the Incognito community on Discourse. Now, any new user can also become a new member of the Incognito community by clicking on this button. Thanks, @zes333! We take it from you and your cool idea.

Changes in Wallet page: Three actions ‘Shield’, ‘Send’, ‘Receive’, and ‘Change account’ button

’Shield’, ‘Send’, 'Receive’

In the old version of Incognito Wallet app, there are 3 shown actions and 1 unshown option of action you can do with privacy crypto like privacy BTC or privacy ETH, after selecting it from the account balance screen. The shown ‘Send’ and ‘Receive’ are used when you need to send & receive the privacy crypto within the Incognito network. In contrast, the shown ‘Deposit’ and the hidden ‘Withdraw’, which you can find from the three dots symbol at top-right corner, are used when you use the Incognito wallet out-network, meaning switching back and forth the crypto between the normal version and the privacy version. For PRV token and privacy coins created from the app, there are only ‘Send’ and ‘Receive’ inside Incognito Chain actions that you can do. @Jamie from our team wrote a thorough piece here to explain all things above.

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With the new version, we want our users to not confuse with in-network and out-network features. That is why we feel that it would be needed to separate the main actions ‘Send’ and ‘Receive’ that all users use into 2 types, in-network and out-network.

Since shielding now is the official name of the activity turning cryptos into privacy cryptos, the 2 confused ‘Deposit’ and ‘Withdraw’ are gone and the suitable alternative should be ‘Shield’ and ‘Send out network’ (belongs to ‘Send’ feature above) respectively.

Lastly, as shared from our community, we know that many users are using the Incognito wallet to increase the confidentiality level when they buy cryptos. Instead of receiving cryptos from personal wallets, they use the address in Incognito wallet used for depositing normal cryptos as the receiving address. With this process, the cryptos will be turned into the privacy cryptos, which no one can trace up, right after being bought. So, it would be thoughtful to serve these users by a ‘Receive out network’ feature.

To be more specific, there will be 3 clear types of action shown when you select a privacy coin. They are ‘Shield’, ‘Send’, and ‘Receive’.

Wallet%20detail

  • ‘Shield’ is used for shielding crypto. In this feature, the address into which you can send your cryptos in normal version appears. By sending your normal cryptos into this ‘Shield’ address, your cryptos will be shielded, being turned into the privacy version and shown in your app balance as p-something.

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You can also click on the small button ‘Find out why’ to read our explanation on why shielding your cryptos is significantly important.

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  • In ‘Send’, there will be ‘Send in network’ and ‘Send out network’

‘Send in network’ is used when you need to send the privacy cryptos to another address in the Incognito network. You can just choose how much you want to send, the receiving address, and the MEMO and you’ll be good to go.

6%20-%20Send%20in%20network%20with%20data

‘Send out network’ is used when you want to unshield your cryptos and turn your privacy cryptos back into their normal version. Choosing how much you want to unshield and the address storing the cryptos in normal version, you’ll have your normal cryptos in a matter of minutes.

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  • In ‘Receive’, there will be ‘Receive in network’ and ‘Receive out network’

‘Receive in network’ is used when you need to receive the privacy cryptos within the Incognito network. Here, your Incognito address is shown and any sender can send privacy cryptos through this address.

Receive%20in%20network

‘Receive out network’ is used when you want to buy cryptos completely anonymously. The address that you can send the cryptos in normal version into the Incognito network is shown here. When buying cryptos, just show this address to the sellers and your bought cryptos will be turned into privacy ones right away. Technically, the ‘Receiving out network’ is merely the ‘Shield’ feature but for a different purpose.

Receive%20out%20network

For PRV token and privacy coins created from the app, there will be no ‘Shield’, ‘Send out network’, and ‘Receive out network’. There are only ‘Send it network’ and ‘Receive in network’ used when you send & receive PRV and other privacy coins inside the Incognito network.

Switching account by the ‘Change account’ button

In the old app, users who have many Incognito wallet addresses need to use the setting menu when switching among their addresses. The account-setting screen, accessed by selecting the gear icon at the top-left corner of the Wallet page.

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The function is actually not entirely intuitive and convenient for the purpose of switching addresses. We learnt this from Mike Wagner’s idea and decided to place a ‘Change account’ button at the top-right corner of the Wallet page. Clicking on this button, a bottom pop-up appears and you can switch to another Incognito address right from here.

Wallet

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Love it. Some phrases used may still need a little explanation or adjustment, but this new interface makes many things clearer, more obvious, than the (current/old) one.

This is great! Love the new look. Agree that the deprecating Deposit and Withdraw may help reduce confusion with new users. Shield/Unshield metaphor is a great way to describe how Incognito Chain works with existing crypto. Agree with @Jamie that some phrases may still need some tweaking. For instance I’m not sure “Receiving out of network” is the best caption for the old Withdraw function.

When switching between In Network and Out (of) Network, it may be helpful to have the main background color change to help distinguish whether a transaction is shielded/in-network or unshielded/out-of-network. Yellow, orange and red are fairly universal cautionary colors but might be a bit much for a solid background color. Green is universal safety color but also might be too strong for a solid background. Maybe an Incognito blue/cyan background with 5px green border for shielded/in-network and white or gray background with 5px orange border for unshielded/in-network? Just thinking out loud …

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Thank you for marking! :+1:
Looking forward to the update!
For active participation in the development of our project, I propose to reward
@Mike_Wagner and @zes333 a small amount of PRV

To be honest, reading this explanation made things seem even more confusing. The main issue with the current app early on was that there was a very arbitrary place for the option withdraw a coin to its native network. People literally had to find random 3 dots that no one cared to explained. Once people understood that the withdraw function hid within the 3 dots, it became much easier to use the app and people had far fewer questions. Otherwise, I do not think the withdraw/deposit/send/receive functionality had many other issues, except for network errors or delays.

I envision an entirely different decision tree when the basic user opens their incognito. I usually need to do one of three things: trade, check my node, or move coins. A rare user may try to create a coin or use apps (once that actually comes online). Therefore, these menu options make the most sense to me:

  1. Send & Receive
  2. Trade & Mint
  3. Monitor Nodes
  4. Explore Apps

Then when I pick one of these, a sub page would detail the specific options to each page.

For 1. Send and Receive, the sticking points have been that people don’t seem to understand the different options for moving coins on and off network. I really think that the best way to clarify the options would be to have them all on the same menu, instead of having a bunch of nested menus and new and more confusing terminology like “shielding,” etc. etc.

Thus, my sub-menu to 1. Send and Receive would be:

  • Deposit crypto to Incognito Network
  • Withdraw p-crypto coins to Native Network
  • Send p-crypto through Incognito Network
  • Receive p-crypto through Incognito Network

All of this would make perfect sense to a user. Functionality would be the same as we’ve been using.

  1. Trade & Mint can then have links to minting your own p-coin or using the pdex.
  2. Monitor Nodes is self explanatory.
  3. Explore Apps would be a place where users can interact with apps or even interface with things like Uniswap or Compound, etc (when that becomes available).

I think the problem with users not understanding Incognito is that there is not a quick and easy way to learn it other than the Telegram channel or reading the white paper. Also, the original withdraw/send/receive/deposit functions were split into two places in a very arbitrary way. If you fix that small detail, things would be fine.

**Also, I think the key is to explain how incognito works before users get to the functional part of the app. For example, the Nexo.io app, has a swipeable splash screen that explains the basic premise of the app before leading to the login and functional part of the app. With the right graphical explanation, a few screens could explain how to use the app and the purpose of moving coins onto the incognito network for a first time user.

wow. thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback @ktn699! looping @henry @tien @binh @ning on the wallet team so they will discuss your feedback in depth in a few hours.

I object removing papps tab. I will release papp of Tipcoin in a few months (possibly in March). What should I do now? @duy

it’s not removed. it’s the new home tab, as that’s where the most important activities for users to do are.

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Thank you :slight_smile: but where is the address bar of the browser? Is there any screenshot?

Hi @abduraman , the address bar of the browser is still gonna be there, it’s just that we don’t go to pApps via the bottom section anymore. There’ll be a pApps portal in the Homescreen, which we are gonna update in the coming version.

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Hi @ktn699 , thank you for your thoughtful feedbacks. A lot of stuffs make sense to me like the splash screens to educate users how to use the app, which we are going to implement in the app update in March.
However, regarding the Home screen options & Send/Receive sub-options, I have a few counter-arguments that I’d like to share.

  • Home screen options: We define home screen options will be the activities they can do with their wallet, therefore we have all the basic ones listed out like Send, Receive, Shield, Trade & Invent. Therefore we will keep Node monitor section where it is. Also, the reason we use Shield instead of Deposit is that it is a way to explain to users what actually happens when they turn their coins incognito, it delivers the value proposition of Incognito and encourages users to protect their money. To unshield is to expose, which is what happens when you leave the network. users need to understand what happens then.
  • Send/Receive sub-options : in the app we need to keep UI as simple as possible, the less text the better. Therefore we keep it down to the most simple options: Send, Receive. And within these options, there’re in-network & out-network.
    Let me know what you think and we can further discuss here.

Are their updates to the node tab?

Specifically, there should be a withdraw button on each hero badge. It keeps withdraw away from the dreaded unstake and remove node buttons as well as removes a layer from a very common activity.

While I know this isn’t functionally possible now, bonus points for a ‘Withdraw All’ button.

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Choosing between ‘Send In Network’ and ‘Send Out Network’ seems a bit non-intuitive for me. Can’t I just paste the receiver’s address and the app automatically recognizes it for me?

Also, ‘Receive Out Network’ and ‘Shield’ are basically the same operations (minus the intention). Why don’t we merge them together?

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Regarding the “send in & out network”, it’s really a cool idea to let the app recognize the address and do the job itself. We’re working on this to make it happen soon in March.

For the case of “Receive out network”, because we have different use cases for users (Bitcoin ATM, receive crypto privately from friends, etc.), we have to use Receive Out Network for those cases. “Shield” will only be used for new users who want to protect their privacy by moving their crypto assets to Incognito Wallet. Since we have specific use cases for each word phrase, it’s important to keep them they way they currently are instead of merging them into one.

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After I experience the new interface, I have some feedbacks:

1- The current interface is not so intuitive :slight_smile:, I think the old one was better than this. I have some suggestions. I think Community and Nodes tab should be removed from the bottom bar. Ordinary crypto users typically want to access 3 basic functions easily: Wallet, Exchange, Apps. Therefore, the bottom bar should be Home, Wallet, Exchange (not pDEX or DEX) and Apps (not pApp).

2- Nodes and Community require users with more crypto-awareness than ordinary users have. So, I think they can put into Home tab. By the way, in Home tab, Windows-like tile approach may be used. The current situation seems a little bit amateur and the functions are not easily catchable by the eyes.

3- To me, “Shield, Send, and Receive” are confusing to ordinary users. Instead, Send&Receive and Shield&Unshield would be better. Antonyms increase the apprehension of humans. Of course, the other mind-confusing screens (Send-in, Send-out, Receive-In, Receive-Out) should be removed. This solution has another benefit. The coins in Incognito network and the bridged coins in the other networks are easily noticed. If a coin does not have Shield&Unshield buttons, then it is Incognito coin. Otherwise, it is a coin/token in another network.

4- “How much do you want to shield?” question appearing after Shield button is tapped is meaningless imho. The old Deposit function was much better. The current scenario leaves the users hanging: “What if I send lower or greater than the amount I specified?”. Please do not forget that the ordinary users are worried in such situations and worry stops most people doing something :slight_smile:

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Thanks, Abduraman.
@henry please follow up

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