Redesigning Community Page's Navigation for Enhanced Content Discovery
Territories are the foundation of t2.world—spaces where writers and readers publish and converse their niche content. However, the old design had a single-page linear layout, which buried posts and made it difficult to navigate key pages within Territories.
Guided by t2 design principles, the Territories V2 Redesign has set the foundation for enhanced content filtering and discovery, and set a navigation framework that enabled future features like Membership Roles.
Key Solutions
Outgrowing our MVP
Redesigns are never an easy decision. However, as t2’s core feature, Territories had begun to evolve beyond its original MVP. With new features ahead on the roadmap, especially with monetization features, the old design was starting to become a constraint. Through user interviews and behavior analysis, we identified three key pain points:
Unclear Purpose & Structure: Users struggled to understand what a Territory was and how to participate.
Poor Content Discoverability: A single-page linear layout buried important posts, making exploration difficulty.
Scalability Constraints: The layout did not support more complex features, such as Membership Roles and growing monetization-focused features.
User feedback on Discord
“It’s not easy to see published posts within a Territory."
– Celeste (user interview)
"I would love better filter options and recommendations based on my readings."
– Nikki (user interview)
Defining Design Principles
Alongside user research, I co-led internal design workshops to align on a vision for Territories within t2’s evolving ecosystem. This led to the development of t2’s Design Principles (more on the process), ensuring the redesign was not just an isolated fix but a scalable foundation for community-driven publishing.
Blue-Sky Brainstorm on the future of Publishing & Territories
Design Critique of our Territory MVP
Lo-fi Iterating
With these goals in mind, I explored two structural approaches:
💡 We ultimately went with a hybrid approach —a structured left navigation for clarity, with modular panels for flexibility.
Gut Checks with our Users
After launching the redesign, we conducted user testing with 7 participants to assess whether the new navigation improved clarity, content discoverability, and engagement.
💡 A major insight was the strong preference for the Explore Page over the previous Activity Feed for content discovery. Users found it easier to locate relevant discussions, trending posts, and active contributors.
“You're really catching the vibe of the territory much more quickly on the Explore page."
– Lea (admin of t/Horror)
(01) How role permissions are created in settings, (2) How they are displayed to potential members
💡 Users also valued better filtering options to surface relevant content efficiently. Many found the old infinite-scroll structure overwhelming and wanted clearer pathways to meaningful posts.
(01) How role permissions are created in settings, (2) How they are displayed to potential members
"I like that there's more filtering going on with the Explore... you get to have a scope of the interesting conversations happening, and you can easily become a part of that."
— Ifeoluwa
Refining the Final Designs:
With the overall navigation validated our shift from a single linear feed to a modular, tab-based navigation, we refined the content discovery and filtering model to balance exploration and control. Based on user testing insights and behavior data, we defined key UX patterns:
Measuring Impact
In our second round of user testing:
100% (7/7) users successfully completed Navigation tasks (compared to 50% completion in baseline user testing of old designs)
100% (7/7) users expressed user satisfaction with the new modular structure
User feedback post-release of New Territory (THP2)
Learnings & Reflections
This redesign was the first application of t2’s design principles, where we practice collaborative dreaming. In creating space for blue-sky thinking while precisely defining our goals, we were able to push boundaries without losing sight of usability.
The Territories redesign not only improved the immediate user experience but also laid the groundwork for future features. Since it’s launch, it’s been rewarding to see the modular framework seamlessly enable new additions like the "Rewards" tab and a subtab for "Membership Roles", which confirms our vision for Territories to be a more interactive, personalized, and accessible space for community-driven publications.