In 2025, user expectations are sharper than ever. Research from PwC shows that one in three consumers will leave a product they use after a single poor experience – without warning or feedback. This shift in behavior highlights why experience design has become a key element of modern product strategy.
It shapes how a product feels in motion – how users navigate, decide, and interact within seconds. When done right, it reduces friction, builds confidence, and creates interactions users instantly grasp and genuinely prefer.
In this article, we’ll explore how two companies – a global fintech giant and a fast-moving crypto media platform – got UI/UX design solutions for AI/ML products by Lazarev.Agency to rethink their product experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Digital experience design begins by finding points of friction in real user behavior.
- User research revealed decision fatigue and support overload at Payoneer.
- Restructured workflows can cut decision fatigue and boost product stickiness.
- Blockbeat’s redesign focused on clarity, rhythm, and reader flow.
- Gamified elements helped both platforms boost engagement without sacrificing focus.
What Experience Design Actually Means
Experience design is a mindset rooted in intention. It means thinking in systems – where every interaction feels purposeful, intuitive, and aligned with how people actually think and act.
While UX zeroes in on usability, this broader approach asks something else: “What does the product feel like to use – and why does that matter?”
It accounts for:
- Micro-interactions and feedback loops
- Visual hierarchy and UI consistency
- Emotional pacing – how the interface guides attention and reduces cognitive load
- Contextual behavior shaped by user type, frequency, or intent
“We saw users returning to older versions, not because they preferred the look – but because they could complete a task faster.”
{{Kseniia Shyshkova}}
Why Digital Experience Design Matters More Than Ever
In an ecosystem flooded with tools, platforms, and SaaS clones, differentiation happens at the experience level. Especially in AI, FinTech, and Web3, where backend power is no longer enough. Years of well-designed products have raised the bar:
- Modern users are spoiled with great choices – and short on time.
According to PwC, 32% of customers will stop doing business with a brand they love after just one bad experience, highlighting the importance of immediate value delivery. - They don’t want to read instructions. And they rarely explore just for fun.
Research by the Nielsen Norman Group indicates that users typically read only about 20% of the text on a web page, preferring to scan rather than engage with detailed instructions. - If your product isn’t instantly clear and rewarding, they’ll swipe past it without a second thought.
A study by Lifewire found that only 50% of users consult the user manual, with many opting for quick online searches or tutorials instead, underscoring the need for intuitive design.
“You don’t lose users because the product is bad. You lose them because it demands too much. The moment it takes effort, they’re gone.”
{{Oleksandr Koshytskyi}}
Great experience design:
- Compresses the time-to-value window
- Makes complex tools feel accessible
- Solves pain points
- Builds repeat behavior through trust and ease
- Turns emotion into retention
Designing Under Load: Payoneer Case
It’s one thing to define experience design. It’s another to apply it – at scale, with real users and real stakes.
We’ll break down two contrasting products and explore how we reshaped their flows, logic, and emotional pacing – turning complexity into clarity, and functionality into momentum.
Solution #1: Fixing the Friction in Payoneer’s Customer Experience
Experience design starts with user empathy. And empathy begins with watching what users actually do and why:
- Where they slow down
- Where they hesitate
- Where they give up
That’s exactly what we did with Payoneer — a leading fintech provider serving businesses in over 190 countries.
Their existing system was robust – packed with options, features, and custom logic. But users weren’t navigating it well. Tasks that should’ve taken seconds stretched into minutes. Support tickets were piling up. The problem wasn’t functionality – it was friction.
"When users struggle, they don’t blame the interface. They blame the brand. That’s the hidden cost of poor UX."
{{Yurii Shepta}}
Our UX audit revealed a few major issues:
- High cognitive load from overstuffed dashboards and visual clutter
- Fragmented user flows that required too many clicks and context shifts
- Support dependence, with users relying on customer service to complete basic tasks
Solution #2: Reworking Complexity Into Clarity
Our approach to Payoneer’s redesign focused on making its complexity feel simple and enjoyable. We kept the depth, but reshaped it through hierarchy, visual weight, and screen-to-screen momentum.
That meant:
- Showing what matters now, hiding what doesn’t
- Reworking flows to reduce steps and eliminate dead ends
- Clarifying microcopy to prevent confusion at the point of action
The result was a product experience design that reduced support load, increased user self-sufficiency, and strengthened brand perception through ease of use.
We also helped the Payoneer team implement a scalable design system, improving cross-team velocity and visual consistency across markets.
Solution #3: Making Everyday Tools Instantly Useful
The redesigned home screen now delivers immediate utility: balances, currency options, recent transactions, and a built-in calculator are all right there. It's brand-reinforcing: no clicks, no hunting, just clarity.
"We treated the home screen like a command center. If the user opens the app to check something, chances are it’s one of three things. So we made sure all three were immediately visible."
{{Anna Demianenko}}
Key visual decisions, including the careful use of Payoneer's existing color palette, created a UI that's instantly recognizable while being significantly more usable. It made navigation faster, the main screen noticeably easier on the eyes, and reduced support requests.
Alongside redesigning Payoneer’s core screens, we developed a flexible UI system built to scale. We defined visual hierarchies, spacing rules, and reusable components that ensured every screen – current or future – felt consistent and intuitive. The dark theme, multi-currency balance cards, and interactive widgets weren’t just one-offs; they were part of a shared visual language.
Solution #4: Invisible Helper – Introducing Voice Assistant
According to PWC research, 71% of consumers would rather use voice than physically type when searching. To reduce friction even further, Lazarev.Agency integrated a built-in voice assistant into the Payoneer platform.
Whether checking a balance, initiating a transfer, or navigating across sections, users can now speak instead of click. The assistant handles queries, routes users to the right place, and enables quick actions for frequent tasks.
This feature proved especially helpful for multitaskers and mobile users, letting them complete core actions without digging through menus. In usability tests, task completion times dropped by up to 23% for frequent flows.
Solution #5: Who Said Fintech Can’t Be Fun?
To make the Payoneer experience more inviting, Lazarev.agency introduced a full-blown in-app game, centered around a custom mascot: 😺Payocat.
The goal was to increase retention and encourage repeat visits through something playful, brand-aligned, emotional, and rewarding.
The game had simple rules: collect as many Payoneer coins as possible while dodging obstacles. The more coins users collected, the greater the discount they received on Payoneer services.
In other words, gameplay translated directly into value.
The game struck the right balance between lighthearted and strategic. It reinforced the brand personality, gave users a reason to come back, and turned a finance app into something a little more human.
"People remember how a product made them feel. With Payocat, we gave Payoneer a heartbeat."
{{Anna Demianenko}}
How Product Experience Design Helped Blockbeat Cut Through the Noise
Blockbeat, an AI-powered crypto news aggregator, came to us with a challenge most news platforms share: user fatigue.
Their AI engine was powerful, surfacing the most important crypto news in real time. But the user experience couldn’t keep up. They were missing key insights, skipping headlines, and dropping off faster than the platform could adapt.
The crypto space is intense. Feeds refresh by the second. And Blockbeat’s original UX offered users little help separating what mattered from what didn’t. It was fast, yes, but not focused.
Solution #1: Prioritizing Signal
We restructured the way information was presented, transforming a raw stream of news into clear, ranked signals. Instead of firehose feeds, users now saw clusters of stories tied to trends, industries, and coins they followed. Each signal had context: source trustworthiness, relevance score, and timestamp.
To support this, we designed:
- A layered UI that separated noise from signal
- Dynamic filters that adapted to user preferences
- Quick-glance cards showing sentiment and market implications
"In crypto, timing is everything, and you need to know why it matters right now."
{{Ostap Oshurko}}
Solution #2: Gamification That Drives Retention
Unlike the game-based mechanic in Payoneer, Blockbeat focused on rewarding behavior that sustained platform engagement. Reading articles, customizing alerts, saving insights – each interaction contributed to a user’s activity score.
We introduced:
- A dashboard element tracking earned points from core activities
- Milestone badges tied to discovery actions (e.g. "First Portfolio Setup")
- Soft incentives for returning daily or interacting with trending signals
These were subtle UX nudges, a move rooted in interactive experience design, where behavior change is achieved through structure.
Solution #3: Designing for Newcomers and Crypto Veterans Alike
Blockbeat's audience ranged from casual investors to hardcore traders. Our interface had to cater to both without fragmenting the experience.
We solved this through:
- Default views were simplified; deeper metrics opened on demand
- Contextual tooltips and onboarding flows for new users
- Predictable patterns that let pros act fast, and beginners learn quickly
Solution #4: UI That Supports Information Flow
Visual rhythm was everything. We leaned into whitespace, restrained color usage, and modular layout logic to prevent overload. Signals felt curated, not dumped.
Micro-interactions guided attention without overstimulation. Tagging systems and floating filters allowed for flexible control. Everything was designed to move with the user.
What Blockbeat Taught Us About UX in High-Velocity Products
What turns AI-powered content into product-led growth, and what separates experience designers from interface decorators? Reinforcing productive habits without distracting from the experience:
- Users need prioritization, not presentation.
- Gamification works best when tied to meaningful behaviors.
- Adaptive UX supports a wider user base without bloat.
- Designing for perception is critical when content changes every second.
- And most of all, speed means nothing without structure.
Final Thoughts: Experience as a Strategic Lever
In a space dominated by AI and data, what separates products people use once from those they return to daily? Experience design. It’s the connective tissue that turns logic into clarity, power into usability, and features into flow.
"Designing the product is only half the battle. Shaping the experience around it is where long-term value lives."
{{Anna Demianenko}}
The companies we featured here weren’t lacking in technical strength. They had powerful engines under the hood – AI pipelines, market data, customizable platforms. But those engines weren’t translating into confident usage or sustainable engagement.
That’s where product experience design came in – to make things work for humans.
It meant restructuring flows to reduce effort and increase clarity. Designing UIs that feel both functional and familiar. Building visual systems that reduce fatigue, guide focus, and create a sense of movement.
More than anything, it meant understanding where value is created and where it gets lost – and using design to close that gap. When done right, it doesn’t just support the product. It drives adoption, reinforces trust, and unlocks retention.
If you're looking for a digital product design agency that merges UX strategy with real business outcomes, Lazarev.Agency’s digital product design team delivers user-tested, scalable solutions across industries.
The products that scale best are the ones where experience design and management evolve together. It’s a business win, and when that happens:
- Users move faster
- Support teams breathe easier
- Stakeholders see real metrics shift
Want to create a product people don’t just try – but return to? Let’s talk about the experience you’re building.
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