Problem
New artists can enter Leep without clearly understanding what the platform offers, where to begin, or what meaningful action to take first. The existing journey moves users from sign-up into a largely generic experience, making it difficult to understand how Leep is relevant to them or what they should do next.
For emerging artists, signing up is not the meaningful outcome. The experience needs to help them quickly understand the value of the platform, take a meaningful first action, and see a clear path toward continued participation.
The challenge was to create a clearer and more relevant path from sign-up to meaningful participation without adding unnecessary onboarding or complexity.
Solution
I designed a Personalized Activation Home to give new artists a clearer and more relevant starting point on Leep.
Instead of creating separate experiences for different goals, the solution uses lightweight onboarding inputs – role and motivation – to personalize one shared Home experience and recommend a relevant first action.
For a new Artist, the primary recommendation is Upload Your First Track, while collaboration, competitions, and discovery remain visible as alternative paths into the wider Leep ecosystem.
The result is a more purposeful journey from sign-up → understanding → action → continued participation.
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Stream 1: Activation – Research, concept development, wireframes, prototyping, and usability testing.
Timeline
5 Weeks
Tools
3 Main Tools
Figma
FigJam
Team
Four-Person Team
Collaborated across streams to develop connected ideas, user journeys, and product experiences for the wider Leep ecosystem.
Research
To understand the activation problem, I reviewed the existing Leep beta experience, available research, stakeholder insights, and the journey from sign-up to the first meaningful action.
I focused on the onboarding experience, the transition into Discovery, and the first actions available to new Artists. Through weekly team meetings, we shared findings, exchanged feedback, and discussed how much information should be collected during sign-up versus later.
These insights helped me understand Activation as an entry point into the broader Leep ecosystem, rather than an isolated flow.
Secondary Research
To better understand the broader context around creator platforms, I reviewed existing Leep research, project materials, and relevant reference platforms. I focused on how music platforms support discovery, collaboration, creator participation, and personalization, and how these patterns could inform Leep’s activation experience.
I also reviewed Vampr, a music networking platform that helps artists and music professionals connect and collaborate. I looked specifically at its onboarding experience and how it uses early user information to create more relevant connections.
This research reinforced the importance of helping new creators quickly understand what the platform offers, what they can do, and where they should begin, while keeping the onboarding experience lightweight.
SWOT Competitive Analysis
As part of the existing project research, I reviewed the competitive analysis of Leep and related platforms to understand how they support artist discovery, music discovery, collaboration, creator tools, competitions, and other areas of the creator experience.
The analysis showed that Leep already has strengths across several core areas, while also highlighting opportunities to strengthen areas such as monetization and community maturity. These findings helped provide broader context for identifying opportunities to make the activation experience more focused and relevant for emerging artists.
Legend
🟩 Core: A meaningful, intentional part of the platform’s value proposition.
🟥 Absent: The platform doesn’t meaningfully provide it.
🟨 Peripheral: It exists, is possible, or has been done, but it is not a meaningful/core part of the platform.
Interviews
To align the project with Leep’s product goals and better understand the needs of emerging artists, I prepared questions for the initial stakeholder discussions.
The questions focused on three key areas:
Product Goals & Priorities
What is the main goal Leep would like to achieve through this project?
What would make the project successful from your perspective?
What are the most important product goals, such as increasing engagement, retention, or participation?
Target Users & Needs
Who is the primary target audience for Leep today?
Is Leep primarily focused on emerging artists, or are established artists also an important audience?
What are the essential activities creators should be able to perform on the platform?
Research & Existing Experience
What user research and usability findings from previous projects should we build on or validate?
What are the biggest problems or limitations in the current user experience?
What existing design systems, UI components, and product assets should we use?
Key Insights
The initial research and stakeholder discussions helped identify key opportunities to improve the activation experience for new Artists. The findings highlighted the need for clearer guidance, a more relevant first experience, and an easier path from sign-up to meaningful participation. These insights informed the next stages of research and helped shape the design direction for Leep.
Affinity Mapping
I grouped the research findings into six key themes to identify recurring patterns and opportunities within the activation experience.
1. Orientation & Understanding
New creators need a clearer understanding of what Leep offers and where to begin after signing up. The current transition into Discovery provides limited guidance about the platform and its value.
2. First Meaningful Action
Creating an account is not the end goal. A new Artist needs to quickly reach an action that creates meaningful participation, with uploading a track identified as the clearest primary activation point.
3. Personalization & User Intent
Understanding a creator’s role and motivation can help Leep make the first experience more relevant. Lightweight inputs can provide useful context without requiring extensive profile setup.
4. Onboarding Friction & Data Collection
The existing experience collects a significant amount of information early. The research highlighted the need to balance Leep’s interest in user data with reducing friction before users experience value.
5. Emerging Artist Context
Emerging Artists are the primary focus for Leep and may arrive with limited existing activity or knowledge of the platform. The activation experience therefore needs to provide a clear and approachable starting point.
6. Community → Platform Participation
Leep has a broader community and ecosystem beyond the initial activation moment. The experience should help new creators move from simply joining the platform toward discovering collaboration, competitions, and other ways to participate.
Key insight:
The challenge was not simply getting creators through sign-up, but helping them understand Leep, take a meaningful first action, and see a reason to continue.
Problem Statement
New emerging Artists can enter Leep without clearly understanding what the platform offers, where to begin, or what meaningful action to take first.
The current experience moves users from sign-up into a largely generic Discovery experience, without providing enough orientation or a clear path toward meaningful participation.
Leep needs a clearer activation experience that helps new Artists understand the platform’s value, find a relevant starting point, and confidently take their first meaningful action.
Point of View
Through the research and beta evaluation, I identified that new emerging Artists need more clarity and direction when entering Leep. The current journey moves users from sign-up into a largely generic Discovery experience without clearly helping them understand what Leep offers or where to begin.
POV:
A new emerging Artist needs a clear and relevant starting point that helps them understand what Leep offers and where to begin, because the current journey moves them from sign-up into a largely generic Discovery experience without clearly guiding them toward meaningful participation.
How Might We Question
This insight led to a design opportunity focused on helping new Artists understand the value of Leep and move confidently toward meaningful participation.
HMW:
How might we help a new emerging Artist understand the value of Leep and confidently take their first meaningful action?
User Persona
I used the client-provided user persona to develop a deeper understanding of Leep’s target Artist and the context they would bring into the platform. The persona highlighted key goals, frustrations, behaviors, motivations, and collaboration needs, particularly around finding the right creative partners, sharing music, and building a career.
These insights helped me keep the activation experience focused on the needs of an emerging Artist, rather than designing a generic onboarding flow. The persona also informed decisions around role selection, personalization, the first meaningful action, and how the experience could lead into continued participation on Leep.
Information Architecture
The information architecture was structured around the different ways a creator can participate in the Leep ecosystem, with Home acting as the main starting point.
From Home, users can move into areas such as My Music, Collaborations, Competitions, Profile, and Discovery, depending on what they want to accomplish.
The structure was also discussed collaboratively because each stream needed to connect naturally to the others.
During our weekly meetings, we discussed what should appear on Home and how different sections could connect users to the experiences being developed by the other team members.
One example came from the team member working on Collaborations, who suggested adding a Connections section to Home.
We discussed how Connections could support users at different stages: for a New User, it could help them discover and follow other people on Leep; for a Returning User, it could show activity from people they already follow and provide a way to open their profiles.
Another team member, working on Brief 4, suggested that Complete Profile should include an Add a Banner Photo option. I incorporated this into my experience so that profile completion could connect naturally with another area of the product.
These discussions helped make Home a shared entry point into the wider Leep ecosystem rather than an isolated Activation screen.
Feature Roadmap
To translate stakeholder feedback and research findings into a focused product direction, I prioritized features based on their potential to improve onboarding, orientation, and early activation for Leep users. The roadmap separates the essential features needed to help users understand the platform and reach meaningful actions from enhancements that can improve discovery, collaboration, and personalization over time. This prioritization helped define the core experience while identifying opportunities for future iterations.
Core Flows
The core flows focused on creating a smooth activation experience for new Artists while establishing how activation connects to the wider Leep platform. The team explored how onboarding could provide enough context to make the initial experience relevant without adding unnecessary friction, while allowing the first meaningful action to lead into collaboration, competition, and other areas of Leep.
User Flows
The user flow maps the new Artist’s journey from sign-up through role and motivation selection to the Personalized Home, where they are guided toward a relevant first action.
During weekly team meetings, we also reviewed how destinations from the Personalized Home could connect to experiences developed by other team members. This helped define the actions available during activation and clarify how the different parts of the platform work together.
Design Exploration
With the activation opportunity defined, the next step was to explore different ways of helping a new Artist find a clear and relevant starting point on Leep.
Three concepts were developed, each approaching the activation challenge from a different angle: personalization, immediate action, and user goals.
1. Personalized Starting Point
Uses the creator’s role and motivation to personalize the Home experience and recommend a relevant first action.
2. Upload First
Reduces the amount of onboarding and moves the creator directly toward uploading their music as the first meaningful action.
3. Goal-Based Activation
Asks creators what they want to accomplish on Leep and uses their goal to guide the initial experience.
After comparing the three directions, Personalized Starting Point was selected as the strongest approach. It provided enough personalization to make the experience relevant while keeping the journey flexible and avoiding separate flows for different user goals.
The selected direction became the foundation for the final Personalized Activation Home.
Wireframes
With the direction selected, I translated the concept into wireframes focused on structure, content hierarchy, navigation, and the relationship between onboarding and the first meaningful action.
The wireframes explored the key screens needed to move a new Artist from Sign-Up through personalization and into the Personalized Home experience.
As the wireframes developed, I reviewed the experience with the team during our weekly meetings. We gave each other feedback on hierarchy, content, and how individual screens connected to the wider product.
These discussions were particularly useful for the Home experience, where several sections and CTAs needed to connect with work being developed by other team members.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
The low-fidelity wireframes translated the selected activation concept into a simple, testable structure before moving into visual design.
The focus was on layout, content hierarchy, navigation, and the relationship between onboarding and the first meaningful action. At this stage, visual styling was intentionally kept minimal so that the experience could be evaluated based on its structure and flow.
The wireframes explored the key steps of the new Artist journey, from sign-up and lightweight personalization through to the Personalized Home experience and its recommended first action.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Building on the low-fidelity structure, the mid-fidelity wireframes introduced more defined content, hierarchy, interaction patterns, and navigation across the activation experience.
The focus shifted toward clarifying how each screen communicates its purpose and how the different onboarding steps connect to the personalized Home experience. Key elements such as role selection, motivation, personalization inputs, primary actions, and navigation were refined to create a more cohesive journey.
The mid-fidelity prototype also provided the foundation for usability testing, allowing the activation flow to be evaluated before moving into the final high-fidelity design.
Mid-Fidelity Usability Testing
The mid-fidelity prototype was evaluated through moderated usability testing with five participants.
The goal was to understand whether a new Artist could move through the activation experience with low friction, understand the purpose of the onboarding questions, and confidently identify where to begin.
Testing Method
- Moderated usability testing
- Figma mid-fidelity prototype
- Think-aloud method
- One-on-one sessions
- 5 participants
What I Focused On
The testing focused on:
- Sign-Up and onboarding
- Role selection
- Motivation selection
- The purpose of genres and skills
- Identifying Upload a Track as the primary first action
- Understanding the Personalized Home
- Recognizing other opportunities available on Leep
Key Findings & Changes
1. Clearer purpose for personalization
Some participants questioned why genres and skills were requested before they had started using Leep. I refined the supporting content to better explain that this information helps personalize the experience and kept the option to skip where appropriate.
2. Stronger hierarchy on Home
Participants noticed several sections on the Home experience, including collaboration, competitions, and discovery, before returning their attention to the main upload action. I strengthened the hierarchy so Upload a Track remained the clearest recommended first step while keeping secondary paths visible.
3. Clearer distinction between primary and secondary actions
The Upload a Track action appeared in more than one location, which created slight ambiguity for some participants. I clarified the hierarchy between the recommended Hero action and secondary Quick Actions.
4. More flexibility around profile setup
Some participants questioned whether adding a profile photo was necessary before entering Leep. This led to making the optional nature of the profile photo clearer and reinforcing that it could be completed later.
These changes helped move the experience from a functional activation flow toward a more focused and purposeful starting experience.
Stakeholder Feedback
Alongside usability testing, stakeholder feedback helped shape the direction of the activation experience and how success should be understood.
The stakeholder highlighted that the core activation challenge was not simply whether a creator could complete onboarding, but whether they actually experienced value from Leep after entering the platform.
“I think you’ve identified the core activation challenge, particularly the need to demonstrate value after the first upload.”
This feedback reinforced the importance of designing beyond the sign-up moment. It encouraged a stronger connection between the first meaningful action and what happens next, rather than treating onboarding completion as the definition of activation.
The stakeholder also raised an important measurement question:
“How do we measure whether someone has actually experienced value, rather than simply completed the onboarding process?”
This became an important consideration in the final direction, leading to a broader activation principle:
Understand → Act → Continue
The goal was not only to help a new Artist complete onboarding, but to help them take a meaningful action, understand what Leep enables, and see a reason to return.
Collaboration Across the Team
Although I owned the Activation stream, the experience was developed within a four-person UX/UI team.
We had weekly team meetings where we reviewed progress, discussed design decisions, gave each other feedback, and helped each other work through UX and product questions.
These meetings were not only progress check-ins. They were an important part of the design process because decisions in one stream could affect the experience in another.
We regularly discussed what information should be included in Sign-Up, what should appear on Home, and how different actions and destinations should connect across the product.
One example was the Connections section. The team member working on Collaborations suggested adding Connections to Home, and we discussed how it could support both new and returning users. For a New User, it could provide a place to discover and follow other people. For a Returning User, it could show activity from people they already follow and provide a way to open their profiles.
Another example came from the team member working on Brief 4, who suggested adding Add a Banner Photo to Complete Profile. I incorporated this suggestion into my Activation experience because it helped connect profile completion to another area of the product.
We also discussed how Activation should lead naturally into Collaboration and Competition, without duplicating the work of those streams.
This collaboration helped me maintain ownership of my Activation stream while making design decisions within the context of the broader Leep product.
Before & After
Feedback from usability testing and stakeholder discussions helped me identify where the activation experience needed more clarity. I refined the onboarding guidance, strengthened the hierarchy of key actions, and made the first meaningful step more explicit. The goal was to help new Artists understand what to do next and experience value beyond simply completing sign-up.
Visual Direction
The team worked from the same Leep UI system to maintain a consistent visual direction across the different streams.
The shared foundation included:
- colors,
- typography,
- buttons,
- logo,
- core components.
Each team member adapted and extended the shared system according to the specific needs of their own stream.
For the Activation stream, I further developed and adapted components for:
- onboarding,
- personalization,
- creator cards,
- Home,
- activation-specific interactions.
During our weekly meetings, we also reviewed shared patterns and gave each other feedback to help maintain consistency across the different areas of the product.
I also reviewed color accessibility and contrast across the final screens and developed a clearer button system based on logical action groups.
This allowed us to maintain a consistent Leep experience while still giving each stream the flexibility needed for its own flows and interactions.
High-Fidelity Design
With the visual direction established, the final high-fidelity screens brought the activation concept together into a cohesive, polished experience.
The existing UI kit and components provided the foundation, while the screens were refined to clearly communicate the onboarding journey, personalized starting point, and first meaningful action.
The final experience includes the complete path from Sign-Up → Role → Motivation → Personalization → Personalized Home, with additional screens supporting the returning experience and continued participation.
Particular attention was given to visual hierarchy, CTA prominence, content organization, interaction states, and consistency across screens, ensuring that the primary activation action remained clear while other areas of the Leep ecosystem stayed accessible.
The result is a high-fidelity experience that extends Leep’s existing visual language while giving new Artists a more focused and purposeful way to enter the platform.
High-Fidelity Usability Testing
Following the mid-fidelity evaluation, the refined high-fidelity prototype was tested to validate the final activation experience and identify any remaining usability issues before completion.
The testing focused on whether the visual design clearly communicated the purpose of onboarding, the recommended first action, and the path toward continued participation.
What I Focused On
The testing focused on how easily users could:
- Understand the three motivation options
- Move through the onboarding experience
- Understand the purpose of the personalization steps
- Identify Upload Your First Track as the primary first action
- Understand the purpose of the New User Home
- Recognize what they could do next after returning to Leep
- See a clear connection between uploading music and continued participation
Key Findings
1. Motivation choices could be easier to distinguish
One participant hesitated between “Collaborate with other creators” and “Share my music”, as both felt like reasonable reasons to join.
Change: Supporting descriptions were refined under all three motivation options to make the choices easier to distinguish.
2. The purpose of the first upload could be clearer
Participants recognized the upload action as the main starting point, but expectations about what would happen after uploading varied.
Change: The New User Home messaging and primary CTA were refined to make Upload Your First Track feel more clearly like the first meaningful step.
3. The Returning User Home could make the next action more explicit
One participant saw their latest track but was unsure what they were expected to do next.
Change: The supporting text below Welcome back was refined to guide users toward what they could do next on Leep.
4. The transition from uploading to collaboration could be smoother
The first meaningful action needed a clearer connection to continued participation beyond the initial upload.
Change: Find Collaborators was added to My Music as a clear next step after uploading.
These refinements focused on clarity and continuity rather than adding new features, helping the final experience move beyond onboarding completion toward meaningful participation.
Before & After
Following the high-fidelity usability testing, I made targeted refinements to improve clarity and continuity throughout the activation experience. I clarified motivation choices, made the first upload action more explicit, improved guidance for returning users, and introduced a clearer path from uploading music to finding collaborators. These changes strengthened the overall experience without adding unnecessary features.
The changes are highlighted in red on the After screens to make the improvements easier to identify.
Impact
The final direction created a clearer path for a new Artist to move from signing up to meaningful participation on Leep.
Clearer Activation
The experience shifts the focus from simply completing onboarding to helping creators understand → act → continue.
More Relevant First Experience
Role and motivation provide enough context to make the Home experience feel more relevant without creating separate journeys for every user goal.
Stronger First Action
Upload Your First Track becomes the clearest recommended starting point for a new Artist while collaboration, competitions, and discovery remain accessible.
Clearer Path to Continued Participation
The experience connects the first meaningful action to what a creator can do next, including collaboration, discovery, competitions, and other opportunities.
A Scalable Direction
Rather than creating separate onboarding journeys for different goals, the solution uses one shared Home structure with personalized recommendations.
The final direction was shaped by my Activation work, usability testing, stakeholder feedback, and ongoing collaboration with the wider team.
Discussions around Home, Connections, profile completion, Collaboration, and Competition helped ensure that Activation connected naturally to the broader Leep ecosystem.
Prototype
The interactive prototype brings the final activation screens and key interactions together, showing how the proposed experience works as a connected journey from sign-up to the Personalized Home.
Reflection
This project reinforced the importance of designing activation around user value rather than simply completing onboarding.
One of my biggest learnings was that personalization does not always require a complex or highly customized experience. In this case, a small amount of meaningful input—role and motivation—was enough to make a shared Home experience more relevant.
I also learned how important it is to distinguish between completing an action and experiencing value. A creator uploading a track is an important activation moment, but the experience needs to communicate what that action enables next.
Working as part of a four-person team also strengthened my ability to design within a shared product ecosystem. We had weekly meetings throughout the project where we reviewed progress, discussed decisions, shared feedback, and helped each other work through different aspects of the work.
Although each team member maintained ownership of an individual stream, many decisions were shaped through these conversations. We discussed what information should be included in the Sign-Up flow, what should appear on Home, and how different streams could connect.
Specific examples included the Connections suggestion from the team member working on Collaborations, the discussion around how Connections could support both new and returning users, and the Add a Banner Photo suggestion from the team member working on Brief 4.
At the same time, I maintained ownership of my Activation stream, from research and problem definition through concept development, wireframing, usability testing, iteration, and final recommendations.
I also further developed and adapted the shared Leep UI system for the specific needs of my stream.
This balance between individual ownership and team collaboration was one of my biggest learnings from the project. It showed me how individual design decisions can contribute to a larger product experience when they are continuously discussed and connected across a team.
