NFT marketplace OpenSea implemented a major upgrade on its design this week to simplify the user experience and put more focus on user content. The world’s biggest NFT store says the current updates are just the first steps, but the crypto community seems critical of the newly suggested user experience.
As stated in the official announcement, OpenSea redesigned the look and feel of its Profile and My Collections pages to make them easier to navigate. The platform expects the new design will put more focus on the community’s content. OpenSea added that technical stack upgrades will come as a part of the changes and make the user interface quicker and more responsive.
The newly designed profile page will allow OpenSea’s users to highlight their favorite content and simplify the navigation between its subpages.
In the meantime, the updates on the Collection page include easier browsing and display of favorite creators’ content. Users may access any other NFTs a creator has made directly from their collection, OpenSea said.
The NFT marketplace noted that it will release more design and user interface changes in the upcoming weeks.
Crypto Space Critical
OpenSea’s latest updates were met with mixed feelings across the crypto community. While some were mostly complaining about the more difficult navigation, others criticized OpenSea for making changes for the sake of change, but not actually improving something that really matters, like stability and platform speed.
@opensea Some people in your team making changes for a sake of changes, just to show that they're doing something, but making changes is not always improving something. All you need is 2 words - STABILITY and SPEED.— kuiperbelt.eth | 0x6664 (@SpiritofEcstas3) May 26, 2022
OpenSea has been suffering stability issues and transaction delays for months after its lightning speed growth inspired by the global NFT frenzy. The popular NFT marketplace reported a 600-fold increase in transaction volume last year, however, simultaneously received numerous user complaints about lagging transactions and missing NFTs.
Despite investments and partnerships with tech giants, the marketplace has been continuously blamed for paying too little attention to security incidents and endless scam projects available on its platform.
..@opensea shouldn't you be more focused on removing the scam projects from your website rather than changing how profiles look? useless upgrade looks horrible— Rug Pull Finder (@rugpullfinder) May 27, 2022
Trading Volumes Decline
The past month has been productive for OpenSea. Prior to its design and user interface update, the platform launched its “Seaport” NFT marketplace protocol, which will allow NFT buying by using alternative payment methods, like barter.
Nevertheless, the platform’s NFT trading volumes are shrinking. According to DappRadar, the sales volume on the biggest NFT marketplace dropped by 44% during the past 30 days.
In the meantime, the competing NFT marketplaces like NFTrade, Magic Eden, or MoonBeans show volume numbers moving in a different direction and three-digit numbers.