Project
Improving creator discoverability across the platform
Workflow
UX Research
Synthesis
UI/UX Design
My Role
UX Researcher
UI/UX Designer
Team
Solo Project
Timeline
5 weeks
Context
Patreon has established itself as a vital platform for creatives to receive support and funding directly from their fans. However, the current discovery process for potential patrons primarily relies on a basic search input field, which can be limiting in terms of exposing the diversity and breadth of talent on the platform.
Patreon has established itself as a vital platform for creatives to receive support and funding directly from their fans. However, the current discovery process for potential patrons primarily relies on a basic search input field, which can be limiting in terms of exposing the diversity and breadth of talent on the platform.
The focus is on new and existing patrons who are interested in exploring and supporting creatives across various genres but may not have specific creators in mind. The primary goal with this project is to enhance the discoverability of creatives on Patreon, thereby increasing patron engagement and support for a wider range of creators. This improvement should lead to increased patronage, higher creator satisfaction, and overall growth in the platform’s user base and revenue.
This project was done as part of my UI/UX design bootcamp at Memorisely.
How might we make it easier for fans to discover creators they love on Patreon?
Solution
Patron Onboarding Flow
Introducing a new onboarding flow for new patrons
Gathers data related to their demographics and interests to suggest creators to follow
Allows them to collect their social accounts so that they can connect to creators whom they already enjoy
Updating Design System
Updated the internal Patreon pages to match Patreon’s sleek landing page
Retained elements from the current design system for usability purposes
Improved Search Experience
Recommendations of creators, categories, and niches related to user interest
Product suggestion in addition to creators to hook users looking for productized value
Infinite scroll replacing pagination to give a sense of abundance and scale
New Recents Tab Layout
New two-column tile layout of posts in reverse chronological order of posting
Gives a sense of high activity to boost engagement
Retains the option to revert to single column layout if the user so wishes
Research
Audit of Current Platform
I ran a thorough audit of Patreon’s current platform to understand the patron experience. It was immediately made clear that Patreon’s website is geared entirely towards converting creators and not patrons. As a result, creator discoverability on their platform is not currently a priority. The onus is upon the creators to hook viewers and convert them into patrons through their content, and Patreon will provide them with their platform and tools.
The landing page was also vastly different from the internal site. The internal platform being plain and neutral to the point of being empty, while the landing page was sleek, highly interactive, and made bold use of engaging color gradients and visuals. An assumption was thus made at the beginning of the process: that Patreon was undergoing a full design system update and the landing page design was the first section pushed into production.
Synthesis
I put together a brief survey to understand the challenges that users currently face when trying to discover creators and engage with content they enjoy.
There were two key insights that came from this:
Users are accustomed to discovering creators on social media with the help of the algorithms and recommendation engines.
Many users are simply not interested in paying to support a creator making content. However, they are interested in products, both physical and digital.
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed Patreon’s competitors to understand how they facilitate creator discoverability. This included Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Ko-fi. A couple of things stood out about these platforms:
They seemed to be specifically geared more towards patrons and gathering support for creator projects.
Although Patreon leads in its niche, it’s website, despite being sleek and flashy, displays only a limited number of profiles and quotes, with the search function having display restrictions. This can create the false impression of limited creator participation, which is far from true.
I also analyzed Youtube and Pinterest to see how they supported rapid content discovery. Pinterest in particular impressed with their onboarding flow that immediately fills a new user’s dashboard with suggested content. Youtube’s recommendation engine as a method of cross-linking content was also a point of interest.
Ideation & User Flows
I used mind mapping to ideate on possible ways to add to or improve on Patreon’s existing platform to make it easier for fans to discover creators and content they would love on Patreon. These were then ranked, consolidated, and turned into low-fidelity wireframes.
Design
The final design turns Patreon’s fan platform into a full-scale discovery experience.
Sign up and Onboarding
Introducing an onboarding flow for fans lets us collect information regarding their demographics and general interests, thus forming a database of creators they may enjoy even before they get into their dashboard. Connecting their social accounts would give Patreon access to their Following data, allowing for easy discovery of creators whom they already enjoy.
Updated Search Page
The new Recents tab on a fan’s dashboard jumps straight into a search and discovery experience with an array of options based on information they provided while onboarding. This update is not only more robust, but is also more visually appealing and in line with the look and feel of the landing page.
Search Experience
The search experience has been changed from a limited pagination to an infinite scroll to give a sense of abundance. Results also show products in addition to creator profiles to provide a variety of hooks for users as well as visual breaks. Subcategories and filters let users delve further into niches of discovery.
Suggested Creators
Upon following a creator, users are provided with a list of related or similar creators to explore.
Updated Recents Tab Layout
The fan’s dashboard is now populated with various kinds of posts and links in a staggered two-column layout, showing a state of high activity. If the user wishes to revert to a single column layout, they may do so.
Learnings
This project helped me train my visual design eye, particularly with the intent of generating a sense of great scale within the platform and hooking users into the sign up funnel. I also practiced balancing a highly visual and interactive design style with usability heuristics.