ZiggieWorld
Redesigning online interactions to create an engaging fan community.
Timeline
Jun 2025 - Dec 2025
Webpage
Platform
Role
UI/UX Designer
Introduction
As a creative and a pop culture enthusiast, I have noticed an increasing frequency of complaints from like-minded peers that today’s online landscape sorely lacks a dedicated, functional space for self-expression and community discussion. So when Ziggie’s founder approached me with the exact vision I had been floating in my own mind, I eagerly hopped onto the project. Ziggie is a brand-new, cross-functional platform that aims to revolutionize and refresh the way fans interact and engage with their communities.
My Role
I am the UI/UX designer for this project, and worked with Ziggie’s founder as well as beta users to develop and refine the usability, accessibility and appeal of this product’s features. The alpha version of the site was struggling with readability issues and poor user experience, and I am onboarded to rectify that as well.
The Problem
“How can we give our users a sense of belonging and identity to the site?”
Engagement farming
Modern social media spaces relies heavily on engagement farming for attention and views. This undermines genuine efforts at human connection.
Discovery
Fan creation, ACG information and franchise updates are scattered across all corners of the internet, making it difficult to find relevant content for interested users.
The goals
Reduce posting fatigue for creators
Modern social media spaces relies heavily on engagement farming for attention and views. This undermines genuine efforts at human connection.
Create avenue and features that allow non-creators to feel engaged and welcomed
Fan creation, ACG information and franchise updates are scattered across all corners of the internet, making it difficult to find relevant content for interested users.
Intuitive features for users to find value in subscribing to what Ziggie can offer.
User retention is our top priority when designing the site. We want to create an ecosystem that will have our target audience returning daily for content.
Centralised
Relevant
Interactive
Design Process
User research & Ideation
Prototyping
Design and Development
User testing
User Research
We identified 3 groups of core users for Ziggie:
The Creator, users who create their own content and
The Fan, users who are passionate about viewing additional content of their fandoms and contribute to discussions
The Event Organisers, users who host gatherings ranging from small interest parties to larger scale conventions
The Creator
Active fandom artist online with a sizeable following. The algorithm changes on popular social media site through the years made them realise that their works are no longer reaching their target audience
Pain points:
Inability to keep up with the demanding algorithm that prioritise showing content of accounts that post more frequently
Needs：
To share art authentically, build supporter relationships, and sustain their creative passion with less burnout and popularity concern.
The Fan
Passionate consumer of games and popular anime, they enjoy reading discussion and theories for their favourite content. They also love perusing artworks of their favourite characters and would go to events to purchase fan-made merchandise of them.
Pain points:
Interesting ACG content is scattered and more often than not they are unable to peruse relevant content without distractions.
Needs：
A place to geek out about their favorite character with people who truly get it without feeling out of place or judged, and possibly make some long-lasting friendship along the way.
The Organiser
Avid ACG individuals who wish to gather peers of similar interests.
Pain points:
Small organisers and individuals find it hard to get good marketing and often have to rely on word of mouth for attendance.
Needs：
A streamlined and systemic way of letting interested participants find out about their event details.
With the core users identified and their pain points understood, we are able to start designing the expected user journey for Ziggie users. Our main goal is to create a seamless loop of browsing experience on the entire site because the above 3 categoryof users are often interested in each other's activities (eg, An Organiser would like to have both Fans and Creators to attend their event in order to bring about more interaction).
User Journey and Key features
With the user flow nailed down, we came up with 3 main pillars of Ziggie site, which are the Events, Posts and Shop discovery. The 3 pillars should be seamlessly linked with each other in order to optimise discovery and engagement for all users.
Prototyping
Using tools like Excalidraw and Miro, I quickly did wireframes for the MVP version of the platform
Design
Ziggie's goal is to create an online creative space, hence we went for a dark them with contrasting colours to give off a cyberpunk impression.
HOMEPAGE
Ziggie's homepage is structured in a way that flows downward starting from the minimal browsing section (Events) to the maximum browsing section (Post), which will also be an infinite scroll to keep users engaged.
From our research, we found out that users tend to browse Events the least. They are usually either looking for events of specific fandoms or already have one in mind and are just seeking to sign up/purchase entry tickets.
Posts are the backbone of content on Ziggie. Many will be imported directly from user's existing Instagram, hence creating an endless scroll for a seamless browsing experience right from the get go.
![](data:image/svg+xml,<svg display="block" role="presentation" viewBox="0 0 14 39" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g d="M 5.828 1 C 5.828 0.448 6.276 0 6.828 0 L 6.828 0 C 7.381 0 7.828 0.448 7.828 1 L 7.828 38 C 7.828 38.552 7.381 39 6.828 39 L 6.828 39 C 6.276 39 5.828 38.552 5.828 38 Z M 5.95 0.464 C 6.34 0.074 6.973 0.074 7.364 0.464 L 7.364 0.464 C 7.754 0.855 7.754 1.488 7.364 1.879 L 1.707 7.536 C 1.317 7.926 0.683 7.926 0.293 7.536 L 0.293 7.536 C -0.098 7.145 -0.098 6.512 0.293 6.121 Z M 13.364 6.121 C 13.754 6.512 13.754 7.145 13.364 7.536 L 13.364 7.536 C 12.973 7.926 12.34 7.926 11.95 7.536 L 6.293 1.879 C 5.902 1.488 5.902 0.855 6.293 0.464 L 6.293 0.464 C 6.683 0.074 7.317 0.074 7.707 0.464 Z" fill="transparent" height="39px" id="OpkdzFwI4" width="13.65685443950449px"><path d="M 0 1 C 0 0.448 0.448 0 1 0 L 1 0 C 1.552 0 2 0.448 2 1 L 2 38 C 2 38.552 1.552 39 1 39 L 1 39 C 0.448 39 0 38.552 0 38 Z" fill="rgb(255, 255, 255)" height="39px" id="KY6C4HzL8" transform="translate(5.828 0)" width="2px"/><path d="M 0 1 C 0 0.448 0.448 0 1 0 L 1 0 C 1.552 0 2 0.448 2 1 L 2 9 C 2 9.552 1.552 10 1 10 L 1 10 C 0.448 10 0 9.552 0 9 Z" fill="rgb(255, 255, 255)" height="10px" id="mGou9YvBc" transform="translate(2.828 -1) rotate(45 1 5)" width="2px"/><path d="M 0 1 C 0 0.448 0.448 0 1 0 L 1 0 C 1.552 0 2 0.448 2 1 L 2 9 C 2 9.552 1.552 10 1 10 L 1 10 C 0.448 10 0 9.552 0 9 Z" fill="rgb(255, 255, 255)" height="10px" id="O3Vc1eCeB" transform="translate(8.828 -1) rotate(135 1 5)" width="2px"/></g></svg>)
USER PROFILE
User profile is an important aspect of the site. It serves as the identity and "face" of the user, a space to display their experiences, interest and creations. We implemented this page to have a modular and structured layout with rounded corners to give the interface a sense of approachability.
Discovery feed
Ziggie's discovery feed is split into 3 main pillars: Event, Shop and Post. When navigated to Shop and Post, users get the choice to choose between viewing content from creators and friends they have followed, or let the algorithm recommend to them. Events is however displayed chronologically, starting from when the most imminent upcoming event.
Post to Shop management
User testing
We conducted frequent sessions with our alpha user base to seek their feedback and response when engaging with certain features on our site, especially on key features such as the streamlined Post to Product conversion. Below is an example of a feedback session we conducted pertaining that feature.
Hypothesis
Users may have issues understanding how does Post to Product conversion work.
Objective
To understand if users will be able to instinctively understand the interface and engage the feature correctly
Test process
We gave the participants the demo version of Ziggie and asked them to list an existing post as a shop item. Then we observe where they are likely to click and asked them about their experience after successfully listing a product.
What Users Liked
Possible reduction in time taken to reach their success (posting artwork)
Users who frequently post on instagram gave the feedback that having the IG-to-Ziggie sync function is extremely helpful as they only have to go through the process of uploading and typing their captions once
Wide discovery site pertaining to their interest.
In an online space that favors mass engagement and general discourse, many fans reflected that they feel Ziggie does fill up the need of a dedicated corner to sift out the noise and allow themselves to immerse in content of their interests.
Areas of improvement
Browsing the website on big monitors can cause users to lose focus
The browsing experience feels overwhelming because initially we went for a fill screen width for content display. Subsequently in our later versions, we gave a max width to the site's content so that viewer's eyes does not need to move horizontally in excess while browsing.
Clearer guidance during onboarding could be helpful
We noticed that our users initially have a lot of conclusion as to what does the sync function entails, considering that it is a relatively new feature most social medias does not offer. The lack of direction to this feature caused some user to missed out on it entirely.
Next steps?
Iteration, iteration and more iteration!
With valuable insights collected, we are tasked to refine our existing user flows in order to enhance the overall experience. As a consumer facing application, understand user behaviors and interests will always remain at the top of our priority. In the meantime, we intend to keep close contact with our key stakeholders and seek out new user feedback in order to consolidate the direction Ziggie needs to take.
Takeaways
Features don’t exist in isolation
Whenever we brainstorm a new feature for the site, it inevitably affects a string of other existing features. For example, introducing a direct link from Events to participating sellers’ merchandise would require us to consider how to implement the corresponding UI in the user’s shop interface as well as product listing process. Hence, proper planning and structure during the early process of production is very important
Balancing user's needs
As a site that caters to multiple user types, we have to identify and prioritise features that will benefit each groups without neglecting one party too much, since the success of the site is dependent on having a vibrant and lively ecosystem. Close communication with key users and understanding their pain points is an extremely important step.