Designing a Secure Hardware Wallet Login — Guidance & Best Practices (Demo)
This sample page demonstrates how a secure hardware-wallet login flow can be presented in a web interface for educational or prototyping use. Important: never use an online form to collect a device's recovery seed, secret words, or private keys. Recovery phrases belong offline — written on paper and stored in a secure place. The content below explains principles, UX considerations, and technical best practices developers and designers should follow when building interfaces that interact with hardware wallets.
1. Security-first principles
Always follow a security-first mindset: minimize sensitive exposure, prefer device-side verification, and make any user-client interaction explicit and transparent. Users should be guided to check transaction details on the hardware device screen before confirming. The website itself should never be a trusted source of truth for signatures — the device is.
2. Clear separation of responsibilities
Separate the responsibilities of the web app and the hardware device. The web app may: discover a connected device, request signing of messages/transactions, and display transaction metadata. The device must: display full transaction details, require physical confirmation, and sign locally. Communicate this separation to users in plain language.
3. UX: reduce cognitive load and make danger obvious
Use clear labels, tooltips, and inline help to explain what each field does. Use non-dismissable warnings for high-risk actions (like exporting public keys or revealing addresses). Provide contextual help for passphrase usage and clearly explain consequences (irrecoverable loss if forgotten).
4. Progressive disclosure
Avoid showing advanced options by default. For example, hide passphrase advanced settings behind an expandable section. Progressive disclosure simplifies the interface for new users while providing power features for advanced users.
5. Accessibility & trust signals
Ensure keyboard navigation and screen-reader support. Provide visible, persistent trust signals such as official documentation links and cryptographic verification tips — but avoid logos or phrasing that could be mistaken for an official vendor page unless you have permission to use them.
6. Technical considerations
When implementing device connectivity, prefer secure, standardized channels (WebUSB, WebHID, USB with a wrapped library, or vendor-provided SDKs). Use Content Security Policy headers, strong TLS, and strict subresource integrity. Never post or accept seeds over network APIs.
7. Educational warnings
Never ask users to paste their recovery seed into a website. If you must demonstrate, use clearly labeled mock inputs and prominent warnings that the demo will not accept or transmit real secret material.
8. Example flow (high level)
1. Detect: the page detects a connected device via a permissioned API. 2. Authenticate: the device asks for local PIN entry or biometric confirmation on the device (not the browser). 3. Confirm: the app displays a compact transaction summary; the device displays the full details for confirmation. 4. Sign: only after the user confirms on the device does signing occur. 5. Verify: app validates signed message and shows a success state.
9. Logging, errors and user support
Log error codes (locally) and offer clear recovery steps. Provide links to official documentation and contact channels. For any irreversible action present a multi-step confirmation with explicit phrasing such as "I understand this action is irreversible."
10. Final thoughts
Creating secure wallet experiences is about clear communication, minimizing the attack surface, and ensuring the hardware device remains the final authority for cryptographic confirmation. Use prototypes, user testing, and security reviews. And again: treat this demo code as a UI example — not a production implementation.