I designed KICK's Reserved Accounts profile experience, enabling viewers to follow and connect before a creator activated their channel. The work supported creator acquisition by carrying early followers into the claimed account and recognising their support when the creator first went live.
Role
Lead designer, Creator Tools and Engagement
Collaboration
Product, Engineering, Design, Branding, Marketing, Partnerships, and Leadership
Timeline
1 Month
Platform
Desktop , Mobile Web and Mobile App
These capabilities were intended to make joining KICK more attractive to established creators by enabling audience formation before their debut. Creator activation, follower growth, monetisation uptake, and watch-hour effects require measurement and are not claimed here.
Audience building before activation
Viewers could follow a reserved profile and chat with other viewers before the creator began streaming on KICK.
Continuity when the account was claimed
The claimed profile retained its accumulated followers and transitioned into a verified, monetisation-ready account in this project experience.
Recognition for early support
Eligible viewers received an early follower badge when the creator claimed the account and went live for the first time. The badge was added automatically; the notification made its availability visible.
An established creator could still face a cold start
An established audience elsewhere did not automatically become a following on KICK. Joining meant building a new platform presence, with verification and monetisation readiness also part of the wider onboarding concern. The Reserved Accounts experience offered a way for viewers to gather before the creator activated the channel. My challenge was to make that profile useful and understandable while clearly communicating its reserved status. A familiar profile structure made following and community participation available within an established layout. The presentation also needed to distinguish a reserved profile from a channel already operated by the creator.
I approached the profile as an experience for early audience participation. It needed to explain its status, give viewers meaningful actions, and connect their early support to the creator's eventual arrival.
My initial direction introduced a completely fresh profile view. Following feedback and behavioural considerations, we retained the overall channel structure and developed a distinct treatment within it.
This gave the design a clear direction: preserve the arrangement viewers already encountered across KICK, while changing the content and visual signals to explain this different channel state.
Preserve the profile structure and distinguish its status
The hardest decision was balancing a recognisable channel experience with a clear difference when viewers landed on a reserved account. I retained the overall profile structure and introduced a dedicated reserved-account banner, labels, imagery, and cyan indicators across the profile image and relevant highlights. The status was communicated through multiple cues, including text, so the distinction did not depend on colour alone.
Use the home section to explain the experience
I treated the home section as an educational surface explaining the reserved account and the value of following early. This gave the page a purpose before streaming content was available: helping viewers understand what they had landed on and how they could participate.
Connect early participation to the active channel
Viewers could follow and chat before activation. Their follows carried over when the creator claimed the account. Eligible early followers were recognised with a badge when the creator first went live. These behaviours connected participation in the reserved profile to the future channel experience. My contribution was designing how the profile communicated that lifecycle and the available viewer actions.
The delivered experience combined
- A reserved profile within KICK's existing channel structure.
- Educational home content explaining the reserved state.
- A dedicated banner and coordinated cyan visual treatment, supported by labels and imagery.
- Early following and viewer chat.
- Follower continuity into the claimed account.
- An early follower badge and availability notification.
I coordinated with the Visual Design team on the assets and worked with Creator Tools and Engagement Engineering, Marketing, Partnerships, and Design through delivery.
The design took one week. The work moved from ideation and an initial draft through feedback, refinement, final review, developer handover, design QA, and live release.
The work was refined through feedback and final review, then checked through design QA before going live. The most significant change was moving from a completely fresh profile direction to a distinct treatment within the existing structure.
A familiar layout can communicate a different product state
The structure did not need to change completely for the profile to serve a new purpose. Educational content and coordinated visual cues carried the distinction.
Audience participation can start before a creator's debut
Following and chat gave viewers ways to engage during the reserved stage. The next evaluation should establish whether this translates into attendance at the first stream and continued participation.
Automatic rewards still need communication
The badge notification made recognition visible, even though awarding the badge did not require a manual action.
Let's work together
Good products rarely need more complexity.
They usually need someone willing to understand the problem deeply enough to remove it.
If you’re building something ambitious and need a senior designer who can move between product thinking, interaction, craft and delivery, I’d love to talk.
Based in Melbourne, Australia
Full Australian working rights
Open to senior product design opportunities and selected contract work.
