Introduction
Volume is a creator platform built for musicians to sell tickets, stream live performances and connect with their fans.
My Role
I led the design team of 2 and oversaw the product scoping, research, user testing and product design.
While a portion of my time was focused on leadership and defining the design scope, I spent most of my time conducting user research, facilitating design workshops and maintaining the design system.
Scope
3 Designers, 1 Product Manager and 6 Developers
Tools
Figma, Zoom, Miro, Notion
Problem Discovery
Volume.com was experiencing musician churn and declining engagement on the platform.
Volume was built for musicians, offering tools tailored to live shows, ticketing and performance. But getting creators to stay active on the platform became a major challenge. In early interviews, musicians shared that they struggled to maintain their existing fanbase on Volume because the platform lacked engagement that encouraged fans to create an account, participate or return.
HMW create experiences that encourage engagement between both Creators and Fans?
The Process
Key Insights & Research
Creators stayed active on other platforms and engagement dwindled on Volume after contractual agreements dried up
Through user interviews, we found many musicians actually preferred Volume's tools for live performances and monetization because it was built for musicians and offered very fair splits. But they still maintained their fanbase on platforms like Twitch because engagement was ultimately more rewarding.
Fan engagement was too low to sustain Creators organically on Volume
When talking to fans, without clear community featuers of engagement hooks, fans had very little reason to create accounts, participate or even return, which left creators without an active audience between performances. Many fans mentioned that activity was higher on other platforms such as twitter or instagram, but those experiences also felt one-sided.
Onboarding wasn't translating into retention
Volume invested heavily on onboarding creators through paid contractions but without strong community engagement those efforts had extremely poor ROI.
Selected Sources
Creating a Superfan: The Behavioral Power of Online Communities
Analyzing the Market and Competitors
Competitors like Twitch and Kick emphasized community building tools and features during a livestream.
Twitch and Kick were built around long, recurring livestreams which averaged 3-6 hours per session, on dedicated schedules and typically 2-3 hrs per session multiple times a week. They relied heavily on continous live engagement, as this directly translated to growing new viewerships.
In contrast, Volume musicians had thriving and dedicated fanbases and were usually using the platform for short performance sessions, typically a few hours long and standalone events rather than broadcasting, and spent a lot more time catering to their fans on other platforms such as Discord and Facebook groups to keep their fans engaged.
In contrast, Volume musicians had thriving and dedicated fanbases and were usually using the platform for short performance sessions, typically a few hours long and standalone events rather than broadcasting, and spent a lot more time catering to their fans on other platforms such as Discord and Facebook groups to keep their fans engaged.
Validating our Assumptions
I interviewed 10 Musicians on Volume and they shared the struggle to stay relevant, stay connected to their fans and bounce from one platform to the other.
Creators felt more pressure to perform in chats without compensation as the platform provided more and obvious ways to monetize. Time spent in Housechats didn't yield proportional returns when compared to message requests or tipping. Many felt that consistent chat engagement felt unsustainable over time, leading them to disengage unless there was an incentive.
Interviews with fans revealed what motivated them to stay engaged with their favorite artists, and what was missing.
Fans were driven by authentic connection, meaningful interactions, and a sense of belonging. Many saw tipping and subscribing as a form of support, even if it didn’t come with direct rewards or benefits. Several pointed out that Volume felt more like a platform for performance than one for building deeper connections, and lacked the features that made their contributions feel meaningful or acknowledged.
Identifying the Pain Points
Musicians needed a space to stay connected with their fans between shows.
Without ongoing touchpoints or engagement tools, creators often turned to third-party platforms to keep their fans engaged between performances. Fans viewed Volume mainly as a place to watch shows, and not a space to support or stay connected with their favorite artists. At the same time, many felt that existing tools outside of Volume were one-sided and lacked the authenticity they were looking for in building a real connection with musicians.
Design Goals
Snythensizing needs into persistent spaces and asychronous monetization.
Provides Sustainable Monetization
Enables creators to earn consistently, not just during live streams but through new channels such as subscriptions, exclusive content, and audience-driven features that reward engagement and support artist livelihoods.
Reinforce Volume's Identity as Musician-First
Communicates Volume’s core value of supporting musicians through transparency, fair revenue splits, and tools that prioritize artist growth, setting it apart from platforms that prioritize profit over creators.
Fosters a Sense of Community
Builds persistent, interactive spaces where fans can connect with artists and each other beyond live performances, that encourages belonging, ongoing engagement, and emotional connection that strengthens loyalty.
Our Solution
Redesigning the profile to offer more control over content, exclusive access, and integrated subscriptions.
A home base for building communities and servicing your fans.
Updating the Profile Page
Balancing Creator Incentives and Fan Experience
- It gave Creators a new monetization moment built into an existing experience, letting them stay active in chats without shifting away from casual conversation.
- It preserved the real-time, community-driven connection that fans craved the most.
- The experience became a new spontaneous way for fans to unlock content in the moment.
Provide fans with exclusive options
Provide a predictable and sustainable revenue stream to deepen user engagement and loyalty.
- Subscriptions give creators another source of income which helps them plan and sustain their content long term without relying solely off of one-off ticket purchases.
- Subscriptions often created a sense of exclusivity and belonging, and curated a community that evolves over time.
- Subscriptions naturally encourage repeat visits and ongoing engagement, making users more likely to create an account and return to the platform regulary.
Upload content outside of streaming
Give Creators more flexibility and control over their content and presence.
- Uploads gave Creators away to stay active outside of streaming and prevented community drop-offs between events.
- Creators can share different types of content that weren't exclusive to streams, such as Q&As, behind the scenes, exclusive releases and tutorials, without the need to go live.
- Fans get a lot more content variety giving them reasons to stay subscribed, interact and engage with the creators more.
Educating fans on Creator pain points
Provided transparency on creator earnings on Volume compared to competitors
- Most fans weren't aware that major platforms like Twitch took a large percentage of creator earnings (often 40-50%). By surfacing this information we helped fans migrate from one platform to Volume to make more informed choices on where to support their favofite artists.
- We positioned Volume as a platform that was built for Creators, by making it clear that Creators earned 100% of tips earned.
- Many fans were driven by their desire to support artists, and framing Volume as a creator-first platform as opposed to platforms like Twitch which profit from fans, we gave users a compelling reasons to stay.
