I live in Belgrade and for whatever reason I'm surrounded by UX (User Experience) designers. I happen to cohabit with one and I asked her to rate the UX design of the crypto exchanges I use from best to worst.
I'll use a fictitious name to protect her privacy, I'm gonna refer to her as Jane.
For the record, Jane knows nothing about crypto and doesn't care, which is I think she's the perfect candidate to form a completely unbiased opinion.
Jane says BINANCE is the least user-friendly out of all five CEXs I use. I was a bit surprised.
As some of you may know, Binance is available in 'normal' mode and Pro mode.
I use Pro mode because I think it's better, but I asked her rate the normal mode because that's what you'd use as a new customer.
She says the interface, especially the landing page, is quite and confusing.
"Both the search tab and the 'buy' tab' don't stand out," Jane said.
Second-worst, apparently, is
Wirex is a lesser-known exchange I've used since 2016, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing it exists.
It has a brand-new interface, literally launched days ago, which according to Jane is good but not great.
"A couple of things are counter-intuitive," Jane said. "As in, I click here expecting to find one thing and instead I find something else."
In second place we find Nexo, which is actually the one I use the most along with Wirex and Coinbase.
Jane has mixed feelings about Nexo.
She praises the top half of the page, because that's where you find the 'Buy', 'Top Up', and 'Convert' tabs.
But she also thinks the bottom half of the page can be a bit confusing at first.
This is where Jane and I strongly disagree, because I personally think CRYPTO.COM is the worst exchange in terms of UX, but she thinks it's fine.
"It's pretty straightforward," she said. "Buy, Sell, Deposit immediately stand out. Not sure what this 'Missions' button might be, though."
1. Coinbase
Coinbase has the best UX design out all these CEX, according to Jane. And I would actually agree with this.
She says the interface is user-friendly, and also nice to look at.
Coinbase recently updated its app, and now the landing page shows just about everything.
You've got tabs to buy, sell, transfer and exchange, the watchlist and the search bar, which Jane says is one of the first things that should always be there, and always be visible.
Disclaimer, the woman in the picture is NOT her. I used a copyright-free photograph from Unsplash instead of her own pic to protect her privacy.
