The Dots ios App

The Dots was created to build a professional network for the modern creative workforce — designers, artists, filmmakers, and other “no-collar” professionals whose careers don’t follow traditional paths.

By 2017 the web platform had already built a strong and diverse community. The next step was launching a native mobile app that allowed members to share projects, discover work, and connect with collaborators in a more immediate and engaging way.

As Founding Designer / Head of Product Design & Brand, I led the design and launch of the first Dots iOS app, taking the product from concept to release in just three months.

Founding Designer / Head of Product Design & Brand

• 0→1 mobile product definition

• Interaction and visual design

• Community engagement and growth optimisation

• Onboarding and retention design

• Brand and product alignment

• Cross-functional leadership across design, engineering and product

Led the design team responsible for delivering the first mobile experience for The Dots community.

131%

increase in daily active users (DAU)

38%

daily active users (DAU) / monthly active users (AAU) ratio

25x

boost in key engagement metrics

4.8/5

rating in the App Store & numerous features including App of The Day

700,000+

members and counting

Creative professionals increasingly use online platforms not just to find work, but to:

• Showcase projects

• Build personal brands

• Connect with collaborators

• Discover inspiration

Traditional professional networks were not designed for this kind of creative exchange.

The Dots community was already actively sharing work and collaborating through the web platform. Launching a mobile app created the opportunity to make these interactions faster, more immersive, and more social.

Projects sit at the heart of The Dots community.

Rather than recreating the web platform on mobile, we focused the app experience around discovering and sharing creative work.

Key product goals included:

• Creating an immersive feed for browsing projects

• Making it easy to credit collaborators and teams

• Allowing members to promote their work and personal brand

• Supporting networking and job discovery

This approach positioned The Dots as both a professional network and a creative portfolio platform.

The community includes designers, art directors, filmmakers, illustrators, and other creatives with high expectations for visual quality.

Design decisions focused on creating an interface that felt:

• Immersive — highlighting projects and visual work

• Elegant — reflecting the aesthetic standards of the community

• Simple — making complex functionality easy to navigate

• Neutral — allowing members’ work to take centre stage

The product intentionally stepped back visually so that the community’s work became the primary content.

The iOS app introduced a mobile-first experience for several core community behaviours:

• Sharing creative projects and portfolios

• Discovering inspiring work from other members

• Networking with collaborators and employers

• Finding job opportunities within creative industries

Mobile also became a platform for rapidly testing new features like events and question and answer experiences before introducing them to the broader web platform.

Mobile dramatically increased the frequency with which members interacted with the platform.

Push notifications, improved discovery flows, and faster sharing enabled the community to engage more regularly with projects and opportunities.

As a result, the launch significantly increased both daily usage and overall engagement across the platform.

Furthermore, the platform and design system we developed for our own community became the foundation for a scalable white-label product. By packaging The Dots’ core technology, interaction patterns, and engagement mechanics into a flexible system, we enabled partners to launch their own branded community platforms without building from scratch. This included extending the product with monetisation features such as bookings, events, and shops, allowing partners to generate revenue directly within their communities. The approach was later adopted by organisations including Frieze, Apple, Soho House, and Dazed, enabling them to build highly engaged, commercially viable digital ecosystems on top of The Dots’ underlying platform.

Building social products for creative communities highlighted a few key lessons.

• Content must lead the experience.
  Platforms succeed when the community’s work takes centre stage.

• Mobile changes behaviour.
  Frequent, lightweight interactions dramatically increase engagement.

• Creative communities value recognition.
  Crediting collaborators and teams is essential for building trust and participation.

These insights continue to inform how I approach community and social product design.

Team

Joyce Li, Nadine Grant, Raquel Sacristan, Harry Harrison, Hugh Waldren, Chris Pritchard, Gosia Palys-Dudek, Michal Palys-Dudek, Paul Weralds, Robin Sian Cusworth, Brendan McKnight

COMPANY / Launch

The Dots / 2017