[S](https://www.techradar.com/features/discord-activities-might-be-its-most-ingenious-addition-yet)ince 2021 we've been working to figure out how to bring casual gaming to Discord in the same way we did at Backyard (Acquired by Discord 2021). In October of 2022, we launched Activities globally to great effect. Our launch saw \~6% increase in Nitro signups, leading to a meaningful advance in MRR.\
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I was one of 2 designers for the Activities team and focused primarily on the desktop platform. Including but not limited to the activity menu, AV calling features, and growth projects. \
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https://www.techradar.com/features/discord-activities-might-be-its-most-ingenious-addition-yet

Discord Activities

Looking for a new product design role. Hit me up! 

Very Dad Designer

IAB MIXX Gold Medal for Branded Utility

GOLD: Sherwin-Williams & McKinney for “The Most Colorful Search Ever”
SILVER: Reynolds Wrap & Havas Worldwide Chicago for “Reynolds Endless Table”
BRONZE: Unilever’s Dove Hair & Mindshare for “Dove Love Your Curls Emojis Keyboard”

Meet Keaton Taylor, Product Designer

Keaton Taylor is a product designer at Discord and stopped by the show to talk about getting distracted by new dev toys, spoons as the best-worst analogy, Wichita as the new Portland, working at Discord, and the interesting career paths for developers and designers in 2022.

ShopTalk Show Episode 530: Keaton Taylor

Keaton Taylor - Product Designer at Envoy

Working from home: tips and tricks

Worked with engineers to design the first iteration of our V0 mobile app to be shipped to alpha users.

Mobile app V0

I led design on Color search. Working with Sherwin Williams and Mckinney as stakeholders. We won an IAB MIXX award

Color Search

I redesigned the space directory to act as a home for users to see who is active and available in their spaces upon login.

Space Directory

I was the design lead for Project Gen, where we tore apart the existing content creation, editing, and moderation tools in Rails and redesigned them to be independent React apps built on the Google cloud development platform.

Content creation and moderation platform

Worked with PMs and leadership to craft a strategy around launching open play spaces. Community spaces aim to drive adoption and retention for the segment of our users who have come to the platform without a group to play with and give them a way to engage and play games with other people.

Community Spaces

Launched Discord Activities in Fall 2023.

In support of our marketing team, I designed landing pages for specific geographic locations. We did this to lock to a specific TAM and experiment on messaging, acquisition, and activated retention. By geo-boxing this we could do some more specific experiments to see what works and what doesn't. We started in the Philippines, as we recently had a significant spike in users in that locale.

Location-focused landing pages

I worked on the core Envoy Visitors app team including projects on the Dashboard, the Billing squad, and the design systems squad.

Visitors

I worked with the mobile team designing V2 of the Envoy Protect check in app,

Protect

Worked on the desktop update of our game shelf adding in features like filtering and sorting, search, and a more clear and consistent labeling system.

Desktop Game Shelf Iterations

I was the designer working on the Treehouse Techdegree program. I worked on the core product and made contributions to the design system.

Techdegree

In search of Activated retention and product-market-fit, we redesigned the Playspace experience. We did this with a focus on making our most retentive and persistent features the stars of the show. Chat, Video calling, and space presence are all showcased as  first-class features in this new version.

Space Remodel

I gave a talk about the wholistic nature of design and its uses outside of a strictly visual medium. I was also very funny.