NEAR Tasks
A decentralized AI data labeling marketplace on the NEAR blockchain. Users complete annotation tasks, earn NEAR tokens, and verify each other's work through consensus-based peer review. It started as satori.art, an NFT Creator Studio, and pivoted.
Snapshot
- Role
- Product Designer, sole designer
- Team
- ~5 people
- Reported to
- Product Manager
- Duration
- 2 years 5 months, across two products
Context and Challenge
This case covers two products and a pivot. I was the only designer across the whole arc, from satori.art through to NEAR Tasks.
The hardest problem in both was the same: hiding blockchain complexity from people who had never used a Web3 product. Users had to connect a wallet, sign a transaction for every action they took, and get paid in tokens without any of that feeling like crypto.
NEAR Tasks had a second problem specific to data labeling. The platform needed to guarantee data quality without anyone on our team reviewing the work. The answer was consensus-based peer verification, and designing for it meant making a multi-party trust mechanic legible to someone completing their first task.
What I did
- Designed the interface for a consensus-based peer verification system and took part in shaping how it worked. A user labels an image. A second user verifies those labels. A third double-verifies. If two users agree the work is wrong, the labeler gets no reward. If the two disagree, a third verification decides. Everyone who participates has a stake in accuracy.
- Designed the complete NEAR Tasks platform: the task center, multi-step annotation flows, peer review and rejection workflows, an earnings and reputation dashboard, a leaderboard, and a badge system.
- Designed the satori.art NFT Creator Studio, where creators built and managed NFT collections and connected them to fan engagement mechanics, including TikTok and Twitter integrations and an event check-in system that mints an NFT when attendees scan a QR code at the event.
- Designed and built the ViralLoops-powered waitlist landing page for NEAR Tasks, integrated the referral widget, and set up the growth funnel.
- Designed and ran Twitter and Snapchat ad campaigns on my own initiative.
- Built design systems for both products: one for the Creator Studio and one for NEAR Tasks.
- Grew past the designer role into product strategy and decision-making alongside the PM and the founders.
Decisions and Trade-offs
Reusing the Creator Studio design system after the pivot. Instead of starting over, I built the NEAR Tasks design system partly on top of the Creator Studio one, so the team did not lose time on a new system.
Taking on growth beyond design. The ViralLoops waitlist was a team idea. I wanted to be more involved in the product’s success, so I volunteered to own the acquisition funnel as well: I designed and built the page, set up the referral flow, and ran the ad campaigns.
Results
- The NFT Creator Studio reached 20,000+ connected wallets, driven by NFT-boom demand and onboarding designed to keep wallet connection out of the way.
- The NEAR Tasks waitlist generated 60,000+ signups in under a month through the referral page and the ad campaigns I ran.
- NEAR Tasks, the AI data labeling platform, launched at NEARCON 2023 with consensus-based peer verification handling data quality without manual oversight.
- Two products designed end-to-end as the only designer, across a full pivot.
Key Learnings
Do not wait to be asked.
Volunteering to handle the user acquisition funnel for NEAR Tasks turned out to be my best decision at the company, and 60,000 signups were the best reward for it. The lesson: do not be afraid to take on responsibility and push past the edges of your own expertise.