I’m excited to be able to give you a heads up about a really lovely update we’re launching very soon; a refreshed, streamlined creator navigation (the left-hand menu) paired with a fresh look and feel that patrons and creators will see. Here’s a screenshot to give you a sneak peak.
You’ll see some minor adjustments to how features are grouped in your left-hand nav but no functionality has been removed
This refresh was a great opportunity to improve the accessibility of Patreon, including introducing a font and color palette that brings significantly improved legibility to our product.
The creator navigation was updated with the goal of making it easier for you to find and focus on what’s important for your membership business.
When this launches, you’ll find a walk-through in the product with tips on where to find everything, plus a blog sharing more of the thoughts and fully updated help articles. Feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback
I’m liking the new look of the nav! Very clean and clear. The real test will be once I can actually use it but at a glance I dig it! This is also familiar to me as this is what Etsy’s seller nav looks like in the back end. (And a few other sites I’ve used.)
So definitely familiar .
At a glance, I love it. Looks clean, and I prefer the blue notification pop up over the current orange. It looks like it has room to grow in functionality as well, if need be. And since I’m a broken record, here’s to hoping that this means we might get some patron-facing browsing updates soon as well.
And I’ll throw this out there: there has been some criticism that Patreon is working on other projects before really nailing down and refining the basics and day to day features on the platform. This update here is exactly the sort of key feature improvement that I have been hoping to see more of.
The creator navigation has been updated fairly recently, if memory serves. That makes me wonder if this was part of a bigger update and this was step one that’ll make everything a uniform, easy on the eyes style. Wishful thinking, maybe…but a fella can dream!
Hey Yuuri — thanks for the thoughtful note, and I’m happy you like the new look
You are correct that the design updates are part of some larger foundational improvements we’re working on. This includes improving the quality and performance of our product, and reducing the amount of time it takes us to design and build things. It also puts us in a good place to allow more personalization for creators, and some other cool stuff coming up.
As for the navigation specifically, aside from looking better (IMO), it’s been testing really well with creators, allowing them to find things easier and navigate around our creator tools faster. You’ll have it shortly, so enjoy!
This is an excellent early birthday present you’ve unintentionally brought me, Ben!
As much as I love some of the broader strides Patreon is making, things like merch etc. are all big deals that will very likely be a core part of the Patreon experience in a year or two, I have felt for a while that for a company and product that is trailblazing, the presentation and functionality is something that has be serviceable but has a ton of potential for upgrades that take it to the next level. From ease of use on the creator end, to intuitive design and browsability on the patron facing end, I’ve been anxiously awaiting Patreon’s leap forward.
So in short, you’ve essentially quelled some concerns I’ve had for a while now. “Allow more personalization for creators” is an especially spicy line that has me excited. Not to mention that creating a foundation that allows for quicker development time just sounds good for everyone all around. This sounds like a big deal to me!
I like how clean it looks and if we are going to have more flexibility in how it looks (like choosing what colours buttons are rather than orange everywhere) then that would be great. I just hope that you’ve fixed the messaging system which is so so badly clunky and unintuitive.
Part of the goal of this redesign was to better highlight Creators, so their brand and content is front and center. To that end, as I hinted at earlier in this thread, we are working on ways creators can have more control over the look of their page.
The idea you mentioned about changing the button color is a great—so great, in fact, that it’s something we’ve been exploring as future iterations of the redesign roll out
WOW love this new look - it’s very clean and to get it easier and faster to navigate is highly appreciated. Wonderful news and great work at @Ben & @PatreonStaffDesignTeam !
What a great update! I love the new look! I can’t wait to test it out when it rolls out, and I’m very excited to see the other improvements in the pipe y’all hinted at. Thanks for your hard work, guys!
Thank you, this fixed one of my biggest UI issues, namely that the left sidebar was not scrollable (for me at least?) - and I have font size set relatively high, which meant that some of the lower items were clipped out of the screen. Now it is scrollable and I can access everything.
I’ll form an opinion on the rest after I’ve used the new interface more, but I really like this particular fix.
I’m finding the header text on the profile (Andō is creating… blah blah blah) is too heavy.
What would help me would be themes, templates or some design control options. Font control and colour control would be sweet. I’m simply seeking a clean, lean interface.
Also, where do I find notifications in the new layout?
While I love the look of this new update, I find the redirect really irritating. it used to be that patreon.com took me to the people I was supporting but now it flashes me over to my creator page. Is there any reason that patreon.com now directs to my page instead of ‘/home’ where I can see my creators? I was perfectly able to go to my page by myself, it wasn’t hard.
