Blockchain is a key technology of the Web3.0 era in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, offering business models and services distinct from existing ones. In particular, NFTs, as non-fungible tokens based on blockchain technology, were evaluated as a so...
Blockchain is a key technology of the Web3.0 era in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, offering business models and services distinct from existing ones. In particular, NFTs, as non-fungible tokens based on blockchain technology, were evaluated as a solution to fundamental problems in the traditional art market, such as unauthorized copying, originality verification, and illegal distribution. Leveraging these technological advantages, various NFT services were launched domestically as well. However, over the past two years, major domestic companies have faced difficulties expanding their NFT businesses and activating platforms, leading to the termination of related services. Actual NFT market transaction volume and value have sharply declined since the 2020 NFT boom. Subsequently, NFTs have entered a period of reevaluation regarding their actual value, alongside policy and legal debates surrounding digital assets, causing stagnation across the industry and business sectors. Meanwhile, modern society is moving beyond the era of personalization and looking toward the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Consumers now expect higher-level experiences and value based on human-centered industries where people and technology collaborate. However, in the current exploration process of most NFT distribution services, key information that enables users to perceive emotional value—such as unique stories explaining the artist and work, context and expression, and NFT metadata—is not provided in a structured format. Therefore, research is needed on UX service design that enables users to have a better experience during the NFT story exploration process, based on consumer characteristics and requirements. UX strategies that enhance the usability of NFT platforms have the potential to contribute to increased user engagement and loyalty, and empirical verification of this should be conducted in subsequent research.
This study examined the components of NFTs, stories, and exploration UX service design, focusing on prior research. Initially, the top 10 NFT platforms were selected based on their user rankings globally and domestically. Subsequently, five platforms with distinct characteristics in digital art NFT distribution were finalized for in-depth analysis. The selected NFT distribution platforms were analyzed during the exploration and viewing stages of their platform UX to understand how artwork descriptions are provided. Following this, a FGI was conducted with a group of experts to gather user requirements and professional insights to be considered in platform design. This enabled the establishment of detailed factors serving as benchmarks for the NFT work exploration and viewing stages. Based on this, the content, structure, flow, navigation, and screens of the NFT platform were designed according to the web service design stages. A Delphi survey using a mixed questionnaire centered on the designed content was conducted to validate the validity of each component. Subsequently, based on the validated results, UX guidelines for the user's NFT story exploration platform were derived.
The specific findings of this study are as follows. First, during the NFT exploration phase, the artist's social activity history and identity information should be prioritized over price as narrative entry points for trust formation. Second, during the NFT viewing phase, in-depth contextual information based on the 5W1H is essential for judging the intrinsic value of the work, and a hierarchical design placing story information above price may be effective for user immersion. Third, during the NFT minting stage, onboarding guides and AI-based sentence recommendation features are needed to reduce the artist's expressive burden. However, this study's validation is a formative evaluation based on expert consensus, leaving usability and effectiveness verification with actual users as a task for subsequent research.