Background
Puck launched in 2021 with an ambitious goal: Serve talent first and revolutionize the role a publisher can play. Postlight collaborated with Puck from the beginning to create a publishing and subscription platform to power a new kind of media business. It was driven by strong storytelling and business intelligence. Puck's innovative approach to monetization aligns the needs of creators, audiences, and advertisers. They needed to provide readers with a high-end user experience, as well as writers and advertisers.
Problem
The platform needed to be able to grow to support anywhere from 15 to 50 publications at a time. The existing experience doesn’t individually cater to core user types:
- Anonymous (which are essentially non-logged in users, or users that are brand new to the site)
- Lead (which are users that have exchanged an email for a free article to explore Puck, but are paywalled, and encouraged to convert)
- Subscriber (paying customers that have full access to cont) As a result, conversions from lead to subscriber were low
Outcome
A modular, scalable system to ensure platform success from day one and beyond
Role
Product Strategy, User Research, UX Research, UI Design, Prototyping, Branding, Visual Design
Objectives
Design experiences for all user states and better measure success for each
Not only were there UX issues around discovering content, I noticed all of Puck's offerings could be better featured for each user type. And then brand messaging and puck education was nearly nonexistent for new users. The goal was to design experiences for all user states and better measure success for each user by strategically placing stronger brand messaging and CTAs and showcasing the value of a Puck membership.
Expand and better integrate all of Puck’s offerings throughout the website and email experience
Authentication, email marketing, and newsletter tools were integrated into the core product so that readers’ experience on-site continued seamlessly into their inboxes. Also implemented were systems to process subscription payments, enable account management, and integrate performance services.
Scaling the current brand in the modern digital experience
Puck arrived with a beautiful brand in hand, so one of the first tasks was to expand this foundational documentation into a scalable design system that could serve Puck’s three main constituencies. I designed storytelling experiences for journalists and audiences, integration capabilities for advertisers, and revenue-generating features for the business — all of it infused with Puck’s trademark sophisticated whimsy.
Impact
What makes Puck stand out from its competitors is that it aligns the needs of creators, audiences, and advertisers with a sustainable, premium media business. And it allows readers to directly support the elite journalists they love while benefiting from the full power of the Puck editorial platform. Since launch, Puck now has over 250k active users, where 92% are leads that have exchanged an email to explore content, and 8% are paid subscribers.