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Intents Based DEX

Khalani Chain

At Tunnel Vision Labs, I was tasked with designing a brand-new, cross-chain intents-focused DeFi protocol from scratch. As part of a small, agile team of five, I led all creative efforts—ranging from rebranding to UX/UI design and managing front-end development. Although the project pivoted just before launch, shifting the focus from the DeFi product to deeper research into intents, we still succeeded in launching a testnet.

Completed

Branding

UX Research :
- Competitor analysis

- Personas

- User Journey Maps

User Flows

UI Design + Design System

Dev Hand Off

Logo

The Challenge

Khalani was a DeFi protocol built on the Nervos blockchain. The main challenge was to create a best-in-class UX for a DeFi protocol, with a strong focus on simplicity. The goal was a no-nonsense approach—offering core DeFi primitives like bridging, liquidity, lending and borrowing, and swapping—all wrapped in a seamless user experience.

Branding was another key challenge. It needed to look modern while staying relevant to both the protocol’s functionality and the brand name, reflecting the DeFi space’s innovative and cutting-edge nature.

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The Process

The process for Khalani was unique due to the small team size, requiring me to take on multiple roles. In addition to handling branding, UX/UI, and general design work, I also wrote all user stories for the developers using the Gherkin methodology (Given/When/Then).


Our UX process followed a fast design-test-break-redesign approach. We worked quickly to get prototypes up, tested them with Discord users, gathered feedback, and iterated rapidly to refine the experience.

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The outcome

Sadly, the project didn’t progress beyond the testnet stage, as the powers that be decided the market was shifting away from our initial direction and chose to focus resources on intent-based research instead.

However, as an avid DeFi user, I truly believe we built a best-in-class UX for a DeFi protocol. It was a shame that it didn’t make it to mainnet, but the experience and outcome were still something to be proud of.

Lottie Microanimations

An example of Lottie animations included in the developer handoff to guide front-end development.

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