3-Year DeFi Evolution: From Legacy Interface to $37M TVL Platform
Led a complete platform redesign over 3 major versions, establishing a scalable design system and improving core user flows.
My Role & Timeline:
Lead Product Designer | 2022 – 2024
Key Achievement to Hook:
Redesigned the core product to grow TVL from $8M to $37M, delivering on stakeholder roadmaps and building a scalable design system from the ground up
1. THE IMPACT: UI 3.0 (2024) — The Final Evolution for SDAO
Version 3.0 - Final Stage of SDAO to Migration & Unified Staking
Key Features Showcase:
Unified Staking V2: "Completely redesigned the staking interface from the ground up, introducing a modern, modal-driven flow that clearly visualizes all states: active stakes, rewards, claim process, and unbonding periods."
Scalable Launchpad Foundation:
Designed and built a versatile launchpad platform, setting the stage for future token launches and ecosystem growth.
SDAO to SFI Token Migration:
Led the end-to-end UX for the critical SDAO token migration, ensuring a secure and clear process for thousands of users.
Global Design System:
A robust system supporting built for rapid drafting and accelerating all future development.
This final iteration represents the culmination of 3 years of deep user research and systematic design thinking. It's not just a new interface - it's the production-ready platform for the SDAO before migration , handling critical processes like token migration and unified staking with clarity and security.
Below, I'll walk through the journey from our legacy beginnings to this industry-standard experience.
2. THE STARTING POINT: The "Before" State (2022)
The Challenge - A Legacy Interface & Mounting Design Debt
Inconsistent styles and no adaptation for mobile view
Broken layouts on different screens
Poor information hierarchy
The Problem Statement:
When I joined in 2022, the product suffered from inconsistent UI, accumulated design debt, and no single source of truth in Figma. This made iterations slow, onboarding new designers difficult, and created a fragmented user experience.
My Initial Mandate:
Audit & Consolidate: "Audit all existing screens and consolidate hundreds of disparate components into a single library."
Establish Foundation: "Create a foundational design system with color and typography tokens to enable faster prototyping."
Establish Foundation: "Create a foundational design system with color and typography tokens to enable faster prototyping."
3. THE FIRST MAJOR LEAP: UI 2.0 (2022) — Laying the Foundation
Version 2.0 — Building the Foundation for Scale
This release wasn't just about a new coat of paint. It was about building a robust foundation that would allow us to move faster and more consistently in the future.
The design system built for 2.0 allowed us to prototype and ship the complex Launchpad feature for 3.0 in weeks, not months.
4. THE JOURNEY & EVOLUTION: Connecting the Dots
Vaults Evolution: 2022 (Before) -> 2022 (1.0 System) -> 2023 (2.0 New Style) -> 2024 (3.0 Refinement)
The user testing methodologies we established during the 2.0 redesign directly informed the intuitive migration flows in 3.0.
The "So What": "This multi-year journey demonstrates my ability not only to execute visual redesigns but to drive long-term product strategy through systematic design."
Let's Discuss the Details
The public case study is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind these three versions lies a wealth of unreleased concepts, user research data, and A/B tests that shaped our decisions - details protected by NDA. The full story of how we drove a 360% TVL growth is even more compelling. I'd be happy to walk you through it in an interview and answer any specific questions you have.
The public case study is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind these three versions lies a wealth of unreleased concepts, user research data, and A/B tests that shaped our decisions - details protected by NDA. The full story of how we drove a 360% TVL growth is even more compelling. I'd be happy to walk you through it in an interview and answer any specific questions you have.
Igor Babichev
Lead Product Designer