Africa has been known to be at the forefront of blockchain adoption. According to Bussinessinsider, blockchain adoption in Africa soared by 1200% between 2020 and 2021. Most of these adoptions have been in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Chainalysis crypto adoption index ranked 4 African countries among the top 20 in terms of crypto adoption in 2021, with Kenya and Nigeria sitting at the 5th and 6th positions respectively.
The Polkadot ecosystem is the most revolutionary, dynamic, and all-encompassing ecosystem out there. But what’s the outlook of Polkadot’s adoption in Africa? Where can things be improved?
To answer these questions, we carried out a survey among Africans from various blockchain ecosystems. The survey lasted for one week, with 108 participants. You can find the raw data of the survey here.
Here’s what we found out from the survey.
Note that this survey was carried out among African communities. Therefore, the results herein aren’t necessarily a true representation of the global population. Hence, we encourage other regions to run surveys, fill gaps and help come up with ways to help make Polkadot onboarding easier for new users.
Over 93% of Respondents would like to be involved in the Polkadot ecosystem
When asked if they’ll like to be involved in the ecosystem, 93.5% of respondents chose Yes
Biggest barriers to onboarding in the Polkadot ecosystem
From our results, Approximately 50% of respondents (who made a single choice) chose Polkadot’s technicality as being the biggest barrier to onboarding in the ecosystem.
However, 60.3% of respondents (who chose two options), chose the lack of enough educational resources as one of the two major barriers to onboarding into the ecosystem.
What will help users Onboard more into the ecosystem?
When asked what sorts of strategies they think will help onboard more users into the ecosystem, 79.4% of respondents chose educational courses.
What this survey shows
From the survey, we found that Polkadot’s technicality and lack of enough resources were the two biggest barriers to onboarding in the Polkadot ecosystem. Also, most respondents believe that educational courses will be the most valuable strategy to help onboard users into the ecosystem.
We also found that despite the fact that most respondents believe that onboarding into the Polkadot ecosystem is hard, most of them would love to get involved in the ecosystem.
Suggestions to help improve user onboarding
Based on this survey, we’d like to make the following suggestions to help improve user onboarding:
- More beginner-focused content. A lot of users outside the Polkadot space could easily get intimidated and easily give up before they even get the chance to see how revolutionary the ecosystem is. We suggest that the communities should create more content (especially technical content) with the beginner in mind.
- The communities should put more effort into creating courses. Users love courses because they’re usually more all-encompassing. Also, courses give a sense of accomplishment to users who’re able to complete them. An example is the Introductory MOOC to Blockchain by the head of education at Web3Foundation (Bill Laboon), which has received a lot of positive feedback.
- Contents should be more practical and involve user engagement. Users are more likely to understand whatever they participate in. Therefore, structuring content that involves the audience getting something done will help improve their engagement and grasp of concepts.
Conclusion
Coming up with strategies to help onboard new users should be a priority. There’s a lot of untapped potential in Africa and across the globe. Therefore, It’s left to our community members to reach out to other communities, educate them, and help make onboarding easier for them.