Talisman (talisman.xyz) is a community-owned wallet and web application that enables users to “traverse the Paraverse” with ease. We believe in a future where everyone has freedom via true agency over their intentions and finances, and we believe that DotSama will bring this to fruition.

For more on Talisman’s mission and approach, please see Agyle’s talk at Polkadot Decoded: Polkadot Decoded 2022: Traverse the Paraverse: How Talisman is bringing multi-chain to the masses

And Jonathan’s talk about wallet UX at the Sub0 developer conference:
Talisman: The UX Chronicles: How To Deliver A Substrate Experience To The Masses

Today, because of its early stage of development and complex multi-chain architecture, both Polkadot and Kusama are changing rapidly and the user experience (UX) can be confusing for end users. It’s our goal to solve that using design, storytelling, and engineering. We abstract away the complexity of underlying implementation and provide a friendly user experience when using DotSama and a way to discover new applications and services available to end users, while keeping them safe and educated about the actions they are taking.

In this proposal, we are seeking to fund improvements to Talisman Portal, Talisman’s “one stop shop” web application that enables users to discover and access Polkadot ecosystem activities with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. This is an open source dapp that supports multiple Polkadot Ecosystem wallets, including: Polkadot.js (500,000+ users), Talisman (20,000+ users), SubWallet (20,000+ users), and Enkrypt (20,000+ users).

The Talisman Portal is an open source dapp hosted at https://app.talisman.xyz. It targets the Polkadot Adventurer, a crypto user who believes in the Polkadot vision and spends a large chunk of time exploring and participating in ecosystem activities, including:

• Viewing, managing and organizing multi-chain assets (tokens, NFTs) and accounts
• Generating a return on investment for their portfolio (we do not provide financial advice, but rather allow users to better understand their positions and opportunities)
• Discovering and participating new dapps and services available in the ecosystem, such as crowdloans (live) and governance (targeted for later in 2023)
• Education and learning about Polkadot, the ecosystem and dapps and services that are available

Directly enabled by the work in this proposal, includes the UX work around Talisman’s nomination pools, which has led to Talisman's nomination pool garnering the largest amount of DOT since launch (>1 million DOT). This is a testament to the simplicity of the staking experience provided by Portal, combined with our trusted brand for new and experienced users. We hope to continue to enable users to stake easily no matter how much or little DOT they have in their accounts.

More than just providing a feature set, Portal is designed with the user first, because UX and design are incredibly hard problems in a multi-chain and quickly-evolving environment. Polkadot Adventurers are committed to being in Polkadot, but they need trusted tools that simplify the experience and enable them to become evangelists that ultimately bring new users into the ecosystem.

The following feedback is from a recent user survey in Feb 2023 about Talisman Portal:

• “Being easy to use is why I recommend it to my normie frens”
• “I consider the strength to be viewing cross-chain assets all in one place”
• “Definitely better UI/UX and easier to use than Polkadot.js”
• “Awesome design and an essential tool for day to day use of Polkadot”
• “The super simple interface gives me peace of mind when dealing with my money”
• 90% consider staking easier to use than Polkadot.js or the most convenient way to stake DOT

We would love to get your feedback on the proposal. Please see the full proposal here.