The Challenge

The primary goal was 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. 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.

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 Hypothesis

By redesigning the discovery process, we could significantly enhance the visibility of creatives, leading to increased engagement and support from patrons. By creating a more intuitive and user-friendly explore page, integrating social media connections, and facilitating user differentiation, we believed we could improve the overall user experience and satisfaction for both creators and patrons. This would, in turn, promote early sign-up/log-in actions and foster greater exploration and support across a diverse range of creators.

The Solution

Our solution aimed to maintain the integrity of the current Patreon user flow while promoting early sign-up/log-in actions and enhancing the discovery process. We redesigned the explore page with intuitive cards and tags, making it easier for users to find and support creatives that match their interests. Additionally, by integrating social media connections, we facilitated a more user-curated creator discovery experience. These improvements were designed to expose the diversity and breadth of talent on the platform, leading to increased patronage, higher creator satisfaction, and overall growth in the user base and revenue for Patreon.