At T2, I designed the membership experience that gave community admins control over how members join and participate.
t2 is a digital publishing app where writers and readers build communities around niche ideas, powered by tools for content ownership, reputation, and monetisation.
As Senior Product Designer, I designed the end-to-end membership experience, giving community admins the tools to define roles, set membership permissions, and create requirements for joining.
As Senior Product Designer, I designed the end-to-end membership experience, giving community admins the tools to define roles, set membership permissions, and create requirements for joining.
PROBLEM
Designing membership and roles for community spaces
As Territories (community spaces) grew, admins had no way to structure how members joined or what they could do once inside. The only friction mechanism was time points, which was a native point system users earned through reading. This meant users had to earn their way in, which slowed onboarding and gave admins no real control. There was no way for admins to create tiers or define what different levels of participation looked like.
Membership Roles was a way to give admins tools to structure and give members a clear view of how they can contribute to a community.
Membership Roles was a way to give admins tools to structure and give members a clear view of how they can contribute to a community.
OUTCOME 01
Creating and managing membership roles
We designed a role creation flow that let admins build up to five membership tiers, each with a name, description, flair colour, and unique digital collectible. Roles could be set as free, paid, time point-based, or admin invite-only, giving communities the flexibility to define access on their own terms.
OUTCOME 02
Setting permissions and requirements
A step-by-step tabbed structure guided admins through role configuration, grouping permissions into clear categories: content creation, territory management, moderation, and rewards. A real-time preview let admins see exactly what members would experience before publishing.
OUTCOME 03
The member-facing subscription experience
Members could now visit a Territory and immediately understand what each role offered, what it cost, and what access it unlocked. The membership selection page surfaced roles side by side, making it easy to compare and choose.
Jamie from t/StoryProf used roles to let members embody fictional characters in a shared narrative experiment. Ana from t/amigos structured roles for editors, curators, and moderators to run a community-led newsletter. Two completely different visions of what a community could be, both made possible by the same system.
REFLECTIONS
Reflections & Impact
Membership Roles generated t2's first $10K revenue stream through paid tiers, but the metric that stayed with me more was hearing directly from admins about how they were using it.
Working closely with admins on this feature gave me a window into how differently communities think about membership. Some wanted completely free and open Territories. Others wanted paid tiers to sustain their work. Some wanted multiple tiers with distinct benefits. The design had to hold all of those possibilities without pushing any one model as the default.
That plurality was the real design challenge, and the most rewarding part. Building infrastructure that lets different kinds of communities define what belonging means on their own terms is exactly the kind of work I want to keep doing.
Working closely with admins on this feature gave me a window into how differently communities think about membership. Some wanted completely free and open Territories. Others wanted paid tiers to sustain their work. Some wanted multiple tiers with distinct benefits. The design had to hold all of those possibilities without pushing any one model as the default.
That plurality was the real design challenge, and the most rewarding part. Building infrastructure that lets different kinds of communities define what belonging means on their own terms is exactly the kind of work I want to keep doing.
IMPACT