I designed KICK's Unban Request experience, giving banned viewers a way to appeal from chat and creators a dedicated place to review requests within their moderation tools. Working with the Creator Tools and Engagement team, I completed the end-to-end flow and UI design in one week.
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
A structured appeal path creates an opportunity for viewers to return to chat when creators approve, while retaining the moderation authority needed to manage their communities. Changes in appeal volume, review effort, or viewer retention require measurement and are not claimed here.
A native appeal path
Banned viewers gained a way to ask for reconsideration directly from chat.
Clear pending-state feedback
Submission confirmation and a status indicator communicated that a request had been received and was awaiting a decision.
Control over repeat submissions while pending
The submission action remained disabled until the creator side had acted on the request.
Moderation had a decision path, but viewers lacked an appeal path
Creators and moderators could ban viewers from chat and later unban them through existing moderation controls. Banned viewers, however, had no native way to request reconsideration. The design needed to connect these two sides: a viewer asking to return and a creator deciding whether that return was appropriate. Although the feature had a relatively small scope and was not a high-priority initiative, its visibility mattered. Viewers needed to discover the appeal action when relevant, and creators needed to know where to manage incoming requests.
The team identified the gap between existing ban controls and the absence of a viewer-initiated appeal. I translated that gap into a flow covering discovery, explanation, submission, waiting, and creator-side review.
We explored multiple presentations before settling on a simple approach. The design direction placed the viewer action in chat and creator-side requests within moderation functions.
The experience also needed to communicate what happened after submission. A clear waiting state was essential to explain why the viewer could not submit again immediately.
Put the appeal in the context where the restriction occurs
Viewers could initiate the appeal from chat. The flow opened a modal asking them to explain why they should be unbanned, with a prominent submission action. This kept the request connected to the affected experience and made the next step explicit. The modal focused attention on a single task: providing a reason for reconsideration.
Pair submission confirmation with a visible pending state
After submission, the experience confirmed that the request had been sent and displayed an indicator of its current state. The submission button remained disabled until the creator side made a decision. Pairing that restriction with status feedback gave viewers an explanation for the unavailable action while limiting repeat submissions during review.
Keep review within creator moderation tools
Creator-side requests were placed under moderation functions, alongside the broader responsibility for managing chat access. The appeal created a way to ask for reconsideration. The decision remained with the creator side.
The delivered design connected five parts of the experience:
An appeal starting from viewer chat.
A modal for explaining the request, with a prominent submit action.
Confirmation and an indicator of the request's current state.
Disabled resubmission while awaiting a creator-side decision.
Creator-side placement within moderation tools and feature introduction guidance.
I completed the end-to-end flow and UI design in one week, working with the Creator Tools and Engagement team and Design. KICK subsequently shipped Unban Requests and included it in its public release roundup.
The design went through multiple explorations before the team selected a simple presentation. Public release evidence confirms that the feature shipped. No formal user-testing results or post-launch performance figures are included in this account.
Discovery and waiting are part of the same journey
A clear entry point helps viewers start an appeal; status feedback helps them understand what happens afterwards.
Restrictions need an explanation
A disabled submit action is more understandable when paired with confirmation and the request's current state.
An appeal should preserve moderation authority
The viewer gets a route to ask for reconsideration, while the creator side retains the decision.
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.
