PATREON
CONTEXT
A UI/UX study, done for a UI/UX Design Bootcamp run by Memorisely.
TEAM
Sanya Rupani (Solo)
TIMELINE
October 2023
2 Weeks
🎯 Enhance the discoverability of creatives on Patreon.
OVERVIEW
The primary goal of this case study 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.
DESIGN PROCESS
This project began with an in-depth user survey, heavily populated with open-ended questions, as this was a more abstract brief. I separated the survey into two routs - users and non-users of Patreon - to understand media habits by people both on and off of the platform.
Using these responses, I found 3 key frustrations:
Desire for improved content discovery
Varied content discovery preferences
Patreon navigation concerns
This was followed by a comprehensive usability audit and competitor analysis. The architecture behind the landing page lacked any sort of organization to differentiate between information for users and information for creators. As for the industry, neither Patreon nor it's competitors (Buy Me a Coffee, Podia) offer any discoverability aspect to find new creators to support.
Using this research, I moved into low-fidelity designs with four goals:
Differentiate between creator and member dashboards more w/ available tabs
Allow user to have multiple accounts of multiple types, to log in as any user in any role
Get both user and creator dashboards to be more engaging & in the style of the landing page
Modernize / simplify UI
LANDING PAGE SOLUTIONS
Separating the landing page into two sections (members and creators) helps differentiate the goals of the two types of users.
Addition of “Help center & FAQ”, “Terms of Use”, “Privacy Policy”, and "Creator Resources" in very visible locations (reasoning below).
MEMBER DASHBOARD SOLUTIONS
Red notification bubble on new posts
'Suggested creator” card, encouraging members to check out other creators that they might not have heard of but are within their realm of interest.
Removal of the triple dot clickable to the right of the logged-in user. These dots opened a pop-up menu that included “Help center & FAQ”, “Terms of Use”, “Privacy Policy”, etc. I instead placed these links prominently on the landing page of the website, since they’re not documents that users reference often.
Easily switch between accounts or create a new one.
CREATOR DASHBOARD SOLUTIONS
“Scheduled posts” section and
Increasing visibility of the “current drafts”. This creator dashboard reorganizes visual architecture, prioritizing content creation and audience interaction, which are the main actions a creator would come here to perform anyway.
MEMBER EXPLORE PAGE
The explore page is the main addition to the member experience, which allows uer to search by name or by tag and see a variety of results, or just scroll through different interest sections, similar to how Spotify recommends playlists and podcasts to their users.
“Creators with free content” emphasizes the idea that this platform can be enjoyed even without spending money on a paid subscription, encouraging users to log on to Patreon for fun instead of to spend.
MEMBER VIEWING CREATOR
New configuration of subscription options still prioritizes the joining & becoming a member but doesn’t list prices unless clicked. This would also assist in analytics to judge how high or low prices can go.
“Posts from other platforms” feed, that’s available as a separate, searchable, filterable list of posts from the creator over any other platform they might use. This is a fan service, as a member would no longer need to click through all forms of social media to see what was most recently said. This free content is not filterable by tier since it doesn’t apply outside of Patreon.
