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Bringing strong encryption to the world – Keybase

In August 2015, I joined Keybase, an online identity network using PGP and a team collaboration platform bringing privacy and security to everyone in the world. Keybase was led by OKCupid’s founders and backed by Andreessen Horowitz ($11M in Series A). Over 5 years, I led design across desktop and mobile and turned PGP into simple tools people could use every day.

I shipped:

Making advanced security feel simple, human and fun

The hardest part was keeping it simple and still rock solid. I built a clear visual style, wrote the most natural-sounding copy, and added human illustrations and animations so Keybase feels made by real, caring people. For instance, in 2019, we launched “Exploding Messages”:

What I learned

Keybase taught me that clear flows and a usable UI matter more than perfect corporate decoration. Our small team let me wear many hats, move fast, and grow a lot. I owned visual design with near full freedom and deepened my UX and product skills. I worked closely with a strong front-end team so every detail shipped right. I also fixed visual bugs in code using React and git to maintain quality high and speed up releases.

Outcome

In May 2020, Zoom acquired Keybase to bring strong encryption to Zoom video calls. I joined Zoom as a Senior Product Designer and later led design for Zoom Chat. Keybase is still used by a couple thousands daily active users, but sleeps patiently until it can reach a new momentum.

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Selected projects

Trusted identity, made simple – The Keybase ID card

Keybase is first and foremost a directory of people who trust each other. The more Alice has proofs, the better Bob is convinced it’s actually her. The more followers Alice has, the more Bob can trust Alice.

By following Alice, Bob is warned whenever her proofs break or disappear, which could mean her Keybase account got hacked or compromised.`

I designed an ID card that pops whenever starting an interaction with someone.

The Keybase filesystem (KBFS)

The Keybase filesystem based on IPFS was both supporting private and public files. Any Keybase user was automatically given 256 Gb via both a /private and a /public folder, their public folder being available to see by the entire world at http://keybase.pub (now closed).

When I joined, the Keybase filesystem was only accessible in the Mac OS Finder or Windows Explorer, and any search action required command lines. We built the file management UI on desktop and mobile.

Search & group building

We iterated multiple times on our search experience, for me the most challenging piece. Our profile search operates on multiple databases (Keybase, but also Twitter, Github, Reddit and Hacker News), allows multiple actions (look up profile, start a chat, open a private folder, open a public folder, create a team), and can be launched from various places in the app. Other constraints came into the game, such as making sure the desktop and mobile UIs felt similar, or that users could check people’s profiles before interacting with them.

The Keybase Chat

Our chat messenger was the richest and the most exciting feature. We genuinely discussed every detail of the experience and iterated constantly. Random examples of discussion: should we indicate presence? how can we show that multiple users are typing? how should we design replies? what if a recipient’s identity gets compromised? how can we expose our blue/green/red code for users in the conversation? how can users start conversations with non-Keybase users? how should badges and push notifications behave, and what should the notification settings be?

We used our own chat internally right after launching it, allowing us to really think through every experience and “feel the pain”.

The Keybase Chat UI


An animation I created for the launch of exploding messages

Payments & wallet

In 2018, Keybase partnered with the Stellar foundation to launch a payment system amongst Keybase users. The Stellar network allows for ultra-fast, no-fee cross-border transactions using an underlaying crypto, the XLM Lumen. We incorporated this payment experience into our chat and implemented a crypto-wallet.

Chris sending 1 XLM to Max in an exploding message

Sign-up, Log-in and Onboarding

Keybase does not only rely on passwords, but also on device keys. Therefore, the log-in and sign-up flows were incredibly complex to design as it involves device key relationships.

A log-in step

As our user base grew, a good profile completion rate became critical to obtain. I worked on onboarding cards encouraging users to complete their profile, but also to search for other users, start a chat, or install Keybase on another device.

The mobile app

We launched our mobile app on iOS and Android early May 2017. Even though we knew our mobile version would launch much later, we always designed for both desktop and mobile, allowing us to gauge the device-related constraints upfront.

Brand identity

Chris Coyne, our co-founder, positioned our mindset on the unconventional, new-age ladder. “People are craving to see that the team behind is having fun.”, he said.
He wanted to break the status-quo and avoid the codes already used for encryption: locks, keyholes, Matrix-looking screens… to create a friendlier, more universal image. This quest for a different, innovative yet easy-to-understand language genuinely inspired me. And also: what a challenge as a designer to simplify encryption and crypto!

I built the entire Keybase visual language, created our core style guide as well as our design library, from basic to richer components. I drew hundreds of icons and illustrations, which I sometimes turned into animated GIFs. I built our own pixel-perfect icon library and our own icon font. Later on, we hired a talented illustrator who drew our new icon set.



Out of an illustration I made, came our new logo, “the girl with the key“. (people like to call her “Alice”, a commonly used name in the encryption community). It conveys a fresh and modern image, away from what already exists, and leveling us up to the “everyone” scale, while emphasizing on the human and social aspect of encryption.

I launched it in February 2017.

The new Keybase logo in the OSX Dock