interlace
Where creators tell their stories, and audiences discover with intention
Solo UX / UI Designer & Researcher
Role
Duration
65hours
After
End-to-end product design, Self-led capstone
Project type
Overview
Turning creative identity into a discoverable experience
Interlace is a visual-first platform that turns fragmented storytelling into a cohesive experience, where process is part of the product and connection happens through context. It helps creators share their process, values, and identity while providing their audiences with a slower, more meaningful way to discover their creative work.
Challenge
Most platforms reduce creative work to content. They prioritise speed, trends, and visibility. Creators are left trying to fit rich, emotional stories into tools built for short attention spans.
On the other side, audiences want a more human way to connect with creative work. They want to understand the story behind what they see. Existing tools don't make that possible.
Solution
Develop a visual-first platform that brings purpose, and identity into one place. Where creators can document their creative process, not just showcase the final result.
Audiences discover creators through values, not algorithms - building deeper connections. By making storytelling core to the experience, Interlace helps rebuild the trust and emotional resonance missing from today’s platforms.
Discover
Before starting the design process, I wanted to understand where the existing tools were falling short. I focused on two research methods: competitor analysis and user interviews. These methods provided both a broad view of the landscape and a deeper look at the lived user experience.
Together, they helped identify emotional, functional, and strategic gaps in the digital platforms used by creators and their audiences.
Two users. One shared need.
What lacked was storytelling, values-based discovery, and creative transparency
The competitor analysis offered a clear view of how existing platforms frame creative work. I wasn’t just comparing features, I was looking at how they support storytelling, visibility, and emotional connection. Since Interlace was built for a global audience, I focused on platforms with international reach and similar creative values. This helped surface not only what was working at scale, but what was consistently missing.
Across the board, I found a lack of values-based filtering, limited storytelling formats, and minimal transparency around how creators are supported. Discovery was trend-driven, with little space for process or individual identity.
Glassette showed strong visual style but minimal space for behind-the-scenes context or brand identity.
Wolf & Badger offered ethical positioning and catalog depth but lacked a consistent storytelling experience across brands.
The Local Edit focused on strong local curation but provided little interactive or multimedia depth.
WHITEbIRD offers strong visual curation and a consistent brand aesthetic but provides limited visibility into the creators behind the products.
Shared frustration revealed a shared need
To understand the emotional reality behind creative commerce, I conducted interviews with seven creators and two values-driven audience members across South Africa, Portugal, and the United States.
I expected two distinct user groups, but what emerged was a shared frustration: something essential was being lost in the speed of digital commerce.
Both creators and audiences felt let down by digital spaces that reduce creative work to polished products and transactional moments. For creators, the issue was the pressure to stay visible while performing for algorithms. For audiences, it was the struggle to find real connection and trust.
Despite their different roles, both described the same emotional gap: a desire for a slower, more personal, and more values-driven platform. Their current tools felt fragmented and impersonal, separating storytelling from commerce and leaving little space for authenticity.
This overlap became the emotional anchor for the project, shaping the tone, structure, and purpose of Interlace.
Key insights
All users wanted visual, narrative-led formats that reflect real creative work, not just the outcome.
All seven creators cited algorithm fatigue and platform fragmentation as major challenges.
Creators sought tools to tell the full story behind their work, not just present the finished product.
Most creators wanted more space to educate and share context.
Both audience members valued trust, transparency, and connection over polish or price.
Both audience members preferred casual, honest content over polished or influencer-led campaigns.
Frustrations aligned into one need: depth over speed
The affinity mapping phase marked a turning point where individual frustrations became a recognisable pattern. What started as scattered insights began to align around a deeper tension: the disconnect between how users want to engage with creative work, and what existing platforms are built to support.
Creators felt stretched, constantly shifting tone and format just to stay visible. Their identities were diluted across systems never designed for storytelling. Audiences felt it too. They wanted to care but had little to hold onto.
Through this synthesis, the opportunity became clearer. Creators weren’t just asking for a better portfolio tool. Audiences weren’t just asking for a better marketplace. Both were asking for the same thing: a slower, more human digital space where creativity, identity, and discovery could finally live in one cohesive experience.
Define
Shaping a more intentional alternative to performance-driven platforms
At this stage, it was time to move from insight to structure. The discovery phase had revealed clear frustrations and reflected a gap in how creative work is experienced online.
The next challenge was to explore what a more intentional, values-led experience could look like - one that supports creative identity and allows stories to unfold over time, not just at the end.
This meant moving beyond short-form performance and starting to define what a slower, more human platform could look like.
How might we create a solution that allows designers to document and share their creative process as a core part of their overall brand experience?
Grounding the design in real user needs
Research led to two primary user personas: Lara, the independent creator, and Candy, the conscious consumer.
These personas acted as anchors throughout the design process, grounding decisions in real needs, behaviours, and motivations.
Balancing simplicity with depth, making discovery feel effortless and story-led
With a content-heavy platform, the information architecture needed to feel simple, visual, and intuitive. The structure was built around two key goals shared by both user types: ease of discovery, and access to meaningful, story-driven content.
Existing platforms often fragment these experiences, forcing users to jump between feeds, shops, and bios to understand a creator. I prioritised a layout that supports intentional browsing, while also allowing for deeper narrative exploration, no matter where a user lands.
Although the original platform idea included both audience-facing view and creator-dashboard, due to time constraints I made a strategic decision to focus this MVP on the audience experience.
Designing for curiosity: a flow that supports discovery without distraction
The user flow maps the journey of a new audience member exploring Interlace for the first time. It was designed to support browsing, connection, and discovery, not just with the content, but with the creator and the platform itself.
Orientation was key. Users needed to land anywhere on the platform and still know where they were, how to move forward, or go deeper if they wanted to. To support this, the flow was kept intentionally light on the surface, with depth available on demand. Familiar UI patterns were used to reduce cognitive load, drawing on conventions users already understand from other platforms.
First-time user signs up, searches for a creator, and saves their page to revisit later
Develop
Designing an experience that feels clear, personal, and creatively grounded
Early sketches were shaped by key insights: users wanted visual-first navigation and slower, value-led discovery. Creators needed space to show their process. Audiences wanted to explore without pressure.
I started with a mobile-first approach, then scaled the design up to ensure consistency across devices. With an even split between desktop and mobile use, both versions had to feel equally strong. UI elements were kept modular and minimal to avoid overwhelm, especially on smaller screens.
Group critiques and mentor feedback confirmed the structure was strong and ready for mid-fidelity development.
Early feedback shaped sharper navigation and stronger first-time experiences
To test usability at this stage, I ran moderated sessions with five participants from the target audience. Using a mid-fidelity prototype, they completed a series of exploration tasks followed by open discussion. I focused on how easily they could navigate, interpret platform-specific language, and explore creator content.
The response was mostly positive, but a few consistent friction points emerged. Filter placement was missed. Users struggled to return to a broader view after viewing a creator’s page. All five participants requested better onboarding for terms like “Glimpse” and “Storyline,” which, while engaging, created barriers to understanding.
Changes were prioritised based on frequency and friction. Issues that came up repeatedly, especially those that impacted orientation or slowed discovery, were addressed immediately, while lower-priority suggestions were documented for future iterations.
What mattered most at this stage was confidence. Users didn’t need to know everything immediately, but they needed to feel like they could explore without getting lost. Updates focused on removing early friction and reinforcing a smooth, intuitive first-time experience.
Homescreen improvements
Category selection and filters were moved to the top navigation, where users instinctively looked for them. Tool-tips were introduced to define platform language without being intrusive. Filter panel was rebuilt with search and sort functions to support more user-friendly exploration.
Before
Refining the studio page
Studio page was refined to reduce overwhelm and improve navigation. The navigation bar was redesigned for smoother movement between sections, while layout adjustments, including consistent image sizing, improved alignment, and clearer hierarchy.
Before
After
Branding with the same care and conviction as its creators
Interlace was built for visual storytellers, so the brand identity needed to meet a high standard. The users I was designing for had a strong visual eye and clear creative intent. The branding couldn’t just look good, it had to feel considered, and hold its own beside the work being shared on the platform.
The visual direction was informed by editorial layouts, design culture, and expressive typography, drawing from magazines, photography, and bold colour blocking. I aimed for a tone that felt modern and vibrant, yet calm and approachable. The palette combined high-energy accents with soft neutrals to strike a balance between excitement and ease.
The handwritten logo brought a human quality: imperfect, expressive, and personal. Paired with a clean sans-serif typeface, it brought clarity and structure without losing warmth. This pairing defined the tone of the brand: thoughtful, optimistic, and creatively confident.
To ensure the interface never competed with creator content, the UI was kept intentionally light. Generous white space, a clear typographic system, and minimal iconography ensured the focus stayed where it belonged: on the work.
“I want to explore, I just need a bit more guidance.”
With the high-fidelity prototype complete, I conducted usability sessions with seven participants, including designers, artists, and values-led shoppers. We tested across desktop and mobile, focusing on onboarding, navigation, and content interaction.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Users described the platform as calm, refreshing, and visually clear. They praised the tone and pacing of onboarding and said the experience encouraged exploration without pressure, a sharp contrast to algorithm-led platforms.
That said, several areas created friction. Platform-specific language, particularly the term “Storyline,” lacked clarity and mobile users noted that horizontal scrolling felt unintuitive and at times inaccessible. Some commented that the homepage lacked clear direction for first-time visitors, making the platform's purpose less immediately obvious.
The strongest insight from this round was that users didn’t need more features, they needed more clarity. The emotion was there - the task was to reduce hesitation, build confidence, and keep the experience as intuitive as it was expressive.
The emotional tone landed
All 7 participants described the experience as calm, curated, and refreshing, a welcome contrast to algorithm-driven platforms
Terminology created friction
6 out of 7 users struggled with the term “Storyline,” highlighting a need for simpler language and better in-context definitions.
Mobile scroll felt unintuitive
All users praised the horizontal scroll, but found it difficult to use, prompting a need for alternative interactions or stronger visual cues.
Onboarding preference selection
Replaced drop-downs with a full list of visible preferences, removing an unnecessary step and making it easier for users to review and edit their selections without backtracking. This change simplified the sign-up flow and improved clarity.
Homepage
Simplified the homepage by adding a clear platform description and refining banner content.
Removed redundant category buttons from the search bar.
Card Redesign
Cards were reworked to improve clarity and reduce cognitive load. The menu icon was unpacked to show key actions like ‘Save’ and ‘Share’ upfront. The card title was replaced with the Creator’s name to reinforce context. The ‘Explore More’ button was removed, making the card’s purpose and actions more immediate and intuitive.
Reflection
This project sharpened how I design, clarified what I care about, and built a foundation for something that still has room, and reason, to grow
This project taught me that clarity starts long before anything visual hits the screen. I used to see research as something to refer to, where as now I see it as something to design within. The insights I gathered early on didn’t just guide the direction, they shaped its boundaries. When pressure crept in to add more, early user voices helped me stay grounded in what mattered.
One of the biggest lessons was learning to navigate trade-offs. I had to be honest about what could realistically be built and tested. The challenge was knowing when to push and when to step back and not just asking “can I build this?” but “does the user need this?” That shift in thinking, from possibility to purpose, has changed how I approach scope and priority.
What I took away
This project began with a question: how might we create a space where independent creators could share their process as a central part of their brand, not just an afterthought? Research revealed this wasn’t just a creative gap, but an emotional one. Creators were tired of reshaping their voice to fit platforms that weren’t made for them.
Interlace responds by making process visible, values legible, and identity something you can feel, not just scroll past. In doing so, it closes the distance between creators and the people who care about their work.
This project clarified what energises me as a designer: shaping how something feels, not just how it functions - crafting a space that reflects the same care and creativity as the people it’s built for.
Future development
Interlace was designed to be modular and scalable from the start, and there’s still plenty of room to grow. The next step would be expanding the creator-facing dashboard and refining how the platform supports multi-format storytelling at scale.
I’d also like to test long-term engagement and understand how creators use the platform over time, and how audiences return to follow a journey, not just a product.
The foundation is strong. What comes next is about expanding its reach while staying rooted in what made it meaningful - a platform that feels personal, intentional, and human.