Account Abstraction
Existing user interaction with EVM chains
In order to interact with Ethereum or EVM L2 chains as of 2023, there are a few concepts a user needs to be aware of and onboarding steps he/she needs to complete:
Install a Wallet Capable of interacting with the chains (eg: Metamask)
Understand what a seed phrase is, setup a new seed phrase, along with attempting to keep it safe & secure
Understand what different chains exists, how to add/enable them on your wallet and switch between then
Understand with the concept of gas cost and gas fee needed and potentially even set it manually to prevent MEV attacks
Understand what ERC20 tokens are and how to add one to your wallets
Tracking native cryto currency for each chain to pay gas fee in
Deal with message/transaction signing: when to sign and what to look out for in a signing request
This list is certainly not exhaustive and is focusing on points related to awareness. There are additional points to related to User Experience (such as multi-step transactions like a swap which requires an approval signing and signing an actual swap txn).
How does Account Abstraction help?
Account Abstraction promotes improving the user experience by abstracting away the concepts of gas, chain, seed phrases, private keys to reduce the onboarding learning curve of a new user, as well as reduce the number of things a user needs to do while interacting with the chain.
It is working towards the vision of providing the same onboarding flow and regular interaction experience as any existing web2 product.