Patreon
December 2024 – February 2025
Memorisely Cohort Project
How users discover and engage with creative talent on Patreon.
Objective: To elevate visibility of creators, drive meaningful user engagement, and expand the ecosystem of support for a more diverse creative community.
I worked as a UX-UI designer on this web application capstone project.
Context
Overview | What is Patreon?
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 is limiting in exposing the diversity and breadth of talent on the platform.
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.
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.
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.
Current Experience:
Pateron’s basic search input limits the diversity and breadth of talent. The interface feels unintuitive, and the ambiguous navigation makes it harder for users to confidently move through the experience.
Design Process
User Research
01. Generative User Interviews:
We conducted five interviews with current users as well as new users who had heard about the platform but never used it.
During the interviews, I included a task-based activity where participants explored the platform in real time while I observed their behaviour. Watching them navigate first-hand gave me valuable insights into what content they look for, how they try to find it, and where they face difficulties. This generative research helped us understand user expectations and pain points, while also highlighted opportunities to improve and create a more user-centred discovery experience.
User Interview Snippets
“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
Synthesising Interview Data
Using Dovetail
Using AI (ChatGPT)
02. Usability Audit and Competitor Benchmarking
To better understand where users experience friction, we carried out a usability audit of the existing platform. This included a heuristic evaluation based on Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, user-flow walkthroughs to assess task efficiency, and a competitor benchmark to see how similar platforms handle engagement and discovery.
Method: Heuristic evaluation based on Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics + user flow walkthrough + competitor benchmarking.
Usability Audit Findings (SWOT)
Competitor Benchmarking - Direct Competitors
Indirect Competitors - Competitor Benchmarking
Research Findings : Key Insights
Users show a strong inclination toward discovering creators by topics, interests, and creative categories rather than through general browsing. A more structured topic-based discovery system, supported by features such as “Trending”, “New Creators”, or category-specific highlights helps users navigate content efficiently. This gives them a sense of direction and reduces the cognitive load of exploring the vast creator landscape.
Participants expressed that quick content previews significantly influence their decision to explore further. Elements like short video clips, audio snippets, artwork thumbnails, or summary excerpts help users evaluate the creator’s style and value instantly. Offering these previews acts as a hook, boosting engagement while making the discovery experience more satisfying and time-efficient.
Instead of purely algorithmic suggestions, participants preferred recommendations shaped by their own interests, creators they already trust and to some extent their follow history. They want platforms to surface similar creators, related themes, and complementary content based on what they actively engage with. This creates a more human-centred, intentional discovery experience that feels curated rather than automated, making users more confident in exploring new creators.
Community-driven visibility matters. When established or trusted creators endorse, collaborate with, or spotlight emerging creators, users are more inclined to explore them. These peer-to-peer signals create a sense of credibility and curiosity. Creator-to-creator amplification builds a supportive ecosystem, helping lesser-known artists grow through shared visibility and trust-based discovery.
Ideation
Rapid Ideation process
Mind mapping | Discovery of the Problem Statement
Mind mapping allowed us to step back from assumptions and explore adjacent opportunities. It highlighted that discovery and evaluation were tightly connected. Users weren’t just struggling to find creators, but also to feel confident supporting them. This guided us in broadening and refining our solution direction.
Low Fidelity Wireframes | Discovery of the Problem Statement
Mind mapping allowed us to step back from assumptions and explore adjacent opportunities. It highlighted that discovery and evaluation were tightly connected. Users weren’t just struggling to find creators, but also to feel confident supporting them. This guided us in broadening and refining our solution direction.
Ideation
User Research
UI Style and Variables
We used the Figma software to . We began with creating Text and Colour styles variables to ease our design process. Further, creating reusable elements like components
Current Experience:
Pateron’s basic search input limits the diversity and breadth of talent. The interface feels unintuitive, and the ambiguous navigation makes it harder for users to confidently move through the experience.