Designing Motion for the Onchain Economy
Designing the motion system and interaction patterns that helped make the Base app feel intuitive, trustworthy, and expressive.
Company: Coinbase
Role: UX Motion Designer
Launch: 2026
Expertise: Interaction Design • Motion Systems • Rapid Prototyping • Design Systems • Rive
Context
The Base app is Coinbase's all-in-one gateway to the onchain economy, enabling people to discover, trade, earn, send money, and interact with applications and other users.
As part of the Base team, I designed UX motion across transactions and navigation while developing reusable interaction patterns and components for the broader product.
Challenge
Base combined social experiences with unfamiliar financial interactions, from purchasing digital assets to sending money.
Users needed clear feedback at every step so they could understand what was happening and act with confidence.
Confident Transactions
Base introduced new ways to purchase, trade, and transfer digital assets, making continuous feedback essential.
Whether purchasing through Quick Pay, confirming a trade with Slide to Confirm, or sending money through Tap to Pay, motion clarified when assets were committed, processed, and successfully transferred.
Learning the Interface
Motion introduced the navigation model, guided attention to key interface elements, and provided immediate feedback that made the experience responsive and easy to learn.
Scaling Motion
Reusable patterns, components, and interactive assets brought consistent behavior across the product while giving teams a foundation for new features.
Brand Expression
Purposeful moments of delight reflected the Base brand without competing with the core interaction.
From Prototype to Production
I partnered with product, engineering, and research to prototype interactions, validate motion behavior, and translate concepts into production-ready assets.
Many reusable interactions were delivered in Rive, allowing engineers to integrate production-ready behavior while product designers refined the final look and feel.
Impact
The system brought consistent feedback to navigation and financial interactions, while reusable Rive assets gave product and engineering teams a faster path from prototype to production.