Patreon
December 2024 – February 2025
Memorisely Cohort Project
How users discover and engage with creative talent on Patreon.
The objective was to, elevate visibility for underrepresented creators, drive meaningful user engagement, and expand the ecosystem of support for a more diverse creative community.
I worked as a UI/UX designer on this web application capstone project.
Context
Overview
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.
Creating an easy discoverability feature was one of most rewarding experience for me. Having worked with painters, video artists and directors for most of my life, creating an engaging experience for Patreon as a platform which connects fans to the creators and generate revenue directly was a wholesome experience.
My role
As a product designer, I was responsible for designing the UI, UX, rendering layouts, and creating prototypes. I primarily collaborated with my cohort Gargi Surve for this project. I created frameworks and prototypes to share the vision, and based my concepts on design principles to evolve the content strategy. This helped to conceptualize ideas, gain alignment, and drive decision making.
Timeline
Over the six week timeline, we had four creative reviews where mentors Margherita Gonzola and Illinca gave feedback and critiques, and mentor Bobby Shaw gave reviews on how multiple stakeholders drive higher-level business decisions. I roughly had four weeks of total design time, as I had six days for the initial design development and then 2-3 days between reviews for edits.
Project Brief
Business Goal
The primary goal for us was to enhance the discoverability of creatives on Patreon, thereby increasing patron engagement and support for a wider range of creators. This improvement needed to lead to increased patronage, higher creator satisfaction, and overall growth in the platform’s user base and revenue.
The task was to,
Research, ideate and redesign the Patreon “Find creators” experience to make it more engaging, personalized, and effective in connecting patrons with creatives that match their interests.
User Segment
The focus was on new and existing patrons who are interested in exploring and supporting creatives across various genres but may not have specific creators in mind.
Design Process
User Research
Generative User Interviews:
I conducted three interviews with individuals who are not current users of Patreon. During the interview process I had some questions where they explored the platform in front of me. Observing the users first hand gave me insights in understanding their content preferences, discoverability expectations, and perceived barriers to supporting creators on such platforms. The aim of this generative research was to inform us the development of a user-centric discovery experience.
User Preferences
“I would have loved to hear a snippet of the music of this person to see whether I like them or not before I join. A free trial or an example of sort or a lot of detail about something before I put money behind it would be important to me.”
– Interviewer 01, Research Scientist
“Suppose the personal recommendation from a friend or a voice you already know, a content creator you already trust is valuable to me.”
– Interviewer 02, Lawyer
Synthesis in Dovetail: Categorisation
Data Synthesis in AI
Usability Audit and Competitor Benchmarking
Further we conducted usability audit to understand the pain points of the existing experience.
Method: Heuristic evaluation based on Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics + user flow walkthrough + competitor benchmarking.
Usability Audit
Direct Competitors
We observed that the Direct Competitors:
- Showcased their work
- Engaged with their audience
- Tracked progress to inspire patron support
Indirect Competitors
Research Findings
Preference for topic-based content discovery
Users prefer a topic-based structure and
discovery mechanisms like “Trending” and “New Creators”.
A content preview is preferred to enhance engagement
Participants prefer having small preview clips, excerpts, or summaries of content to help users quickly assess whether it’s worth exploring further.
Recommendations play a huge role in discoverability
Participants want platforms to leverage their existing interests or trusted creators to suggest similar content or creators.
Creator Endorsements to shine a stoplight together
When trusted creators endorse or share content from lesser-known creators it brings attention to new or emerging talent.
Usability Audit
Direct Competitors
We observed that the Direct Competitors:
- Showcased their work
- Engaged with their audience
- Tracked progress to inspire patron support
Indirect Competitors
Ideation
User Research
Rapid Ideation process
Mind mapping | Discovery of the Problem Statement