This article was originally written in August 2019 and may contain outdated information.
Today, decentralized applications (DApps) that use blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are still held back by poor user experiences. For example, DApps oftentimes require users to go through onerous onboarding processes (e.g. installing web3-enabled wallets, backing up recovery phrases, spending gas to write data to the blockchain) before getting to the core product offerings. As an industry, we will need to build end-user DApps that abstract away much of this complexity, making them feel more similar to traditional centralized applications in simplicity and delightfulness.
At the same time, these DApps need to preserve the main tenets of web 3.0 (e.g. self-sovereign identity, data portability, trustless transactions) that are oftentimes difficult to explain to new users. There are many product and design challenges that we need to overcome before DApps are taken seriously by mainstream users.
That is why I’m so excited to announce that Aure Gimon has joined Origin full-time as our lead product designer. Aure and I first met two years ago in the very first month that Josh and I decided to pursue Origin. At the time, we were looking for a part-time designer that could iterate quickly with us on our whitepaper, pitch deck, and corporate website. We had just feverishly built our MVP and were about to engage with the community and begin our initial fundraising process.
Fast forward to today, and every part of Origin’s product and marketing materials has Aure’s fingerprints all over them. Aure’s product design excellence has enabled us to unveil our recently relaunched mobile applications and web DApp. Aure also led the charge in making Origin Rewards an easily understood but pivotal part of our platform offering. While he spends most of his time on product design, he also moonlights by creating all the designs for our meetups, social media, and swag.
Until recently, Aure was doing all of this while juggling multiple other clients. Now that Aure has joined full-time as a “10x designer”, we cannot wait to see what he comes up with next. However, it’s not just Aure’s work output that I hold in high regard. Aure’s true strengths center around his ability to identify and empathize with both users and the engineers that are building our platform. As a former engineer himself, Aure understands many of the nuanced challenges that our team of world-class software engineers face when building new decentralized infrastructure and applications.
The best products are ones that mask all the complexity that is happening behind the scenes, and Aure has an uncanny skill for only showing users “the tip of the iceberg”. That is precisely what is needed as we continue building out our product offering to attract mainstream users, many of which have little to no understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Here are a few fun facts about Aure:
Aure is a huge fan of Japanese culture, especially Japanese whiskeys.
In just the past 2 years, Aure has helped a handful of startups and venture capital funds raise well over $200M with his pitch decks.
He was born and raised in Venezuela and has a unique perspective on how cryptocurrencies can be used to combat hyperinflation and broken economic systems in emerging markets. He’s been active in helping Origin make an impact in Venezuela.
If you are interested in joining the Origin team as a product designer or engineer working alongside Aure, please get in touch. Please join me in welcoming Aure to the Origin family. It’s been a long time coming!
Learn more about Origin:
Buy Origin Tokens (OGN): binance.com
Learn more on our website: originprotocol.com
