Proven design principles you can apply to your membership

Drawn from the field of user experience (UX) design, a discipline focused on making products easy, enjoyable and effective to use.

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Most memberships don’t fail because of bad ideas. They fail because of a poor experience that prevents members from reaching the goals that brought them in. A membership is simply a vessel for delivering value, and your role is to make sure members can take action and move forward without unnecessary obstacles. The way your membership feels is what keeps people joining, engaging and renewing.

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In my previous article, I shared how I moved from designing products to designing memberships. I showed that the same principles that make digital products successful can also make memberships thrive.

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In this article, we’ll look at the big picture. You’ll get an overview of the key design principles that matter most for membership experience. And in the upcoming articles, we’ll break each one down with real examples you can apply to your own membership.

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What are user experience (UX) design principles? 

When user experience (UX) designers talk about user experience (UX) principles, they are really talking about a set of guidelines that make digital products easier and more enjoyable to use. These principles are all about reducing the effort people need to figure things out (minimize cognitive load), keeping steps intuitive and helping users reach their goals without unnecessary frustration.

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Over the years, user experience design experts like Jakob Nielsen and Whitney Hess have published their own lists of these user experience design principles. The number of principles varies depending on who you read, but the heart of the message is the same: design experiences that are clear, consistent and user-friendly.

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And this doesn’t just apply to digital products. The very same ideas in user experience design can transform membership experiences too. When you focus on designing a membership experience, the goal is to make things simple to understand, easy to navigate and enjoyable enough that people want to keep showing up.

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For this article, I have distilled the most relevant design principles into five big ideas that make or break membership experience: 

• Clarity
• Feedback and guidance
• Simplicity
• Flexibility
• Delight

In the rest of this article, I’ll walk you through each one so you can see how they apply directly to your own membership.

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Clarity

Clarity is one of the most important principles of user experience that you can apply to your membership. When things aren’t clear, members get stuck. If they don’t know what to do next, they feel frustrated and that frustration often leads to inaction or even cancellations.

You can design clarity into your membership in several ways:

• Use plain language. Avoid jargon or insider terms that make newcomers feel excluded. Clear language makes a membership feel welcoming and approachable.
  
  
• Make navigation and actions obvious. Buttons like “Join now” or “Book a call” work better than vague labels like “Click here.” Members should always know exactly what will happen when they click.
  
  
• Be clear about payments. Whether someone is signing up, renewing, canceling or upgrading, they should know exactly what to expect. If members are canceling, make it clear whether they’ll still have access until the end of their subscription period or if their access ends immediately.
  
  
• Design for scannability. On your sales page and inside your membership platform, members should be able to understand the layout at a glance. Use clear titles, grouped content and visible calls-to-action. Even if there’s a lot of information, the layout should feel simple and skimmable.
  
  
• Stick to predictable patterns. Keep processes familiar so members don’t have to relearn simple tasks. Save novelty for special touches and not everyday actions.
  
  

Feedback and Guidance

Feedback and guidance go a long way in improving membership experience. They help members feel supported at every stage, from the moment they are considering joining the membership to the time they are engaging inside the membership.

Here are some ways to build feedback and guidance into your membership:

• Show system status. Let members know where they are in a process. Simple signals like progress bars, step indicators or time estimates reassure members that they are on track. Without this, members can feel lost or overwhelmed.
  
  
• Offer edit, undo and redo. Give members the freedom to change their minds. Features like editing a profile, updating preferences or correcting a post reduce the pressure of “getting it right the first time.” When members know they can adjust later, they feel more confident to take action now.
  
  
• Use signposts. Clear labels and names help members know where they are. This is especially important in memberships with multiple channels or groups. Well-labeled spaces make navigation effortless and help members feel at home.
  
  
• Provide context. What feels obvious to you may not be obvious to a new member. Add short descriptions to channels, pages or forms so that members know how to use them. Small touches like an (i) icon for extra information can reduce confusion. Keep context clear and precise so it helps rather than distracts.
  
  
• Prevent errors. Help members succeed by building systems that reduce mistakes. For example, phone number fields should only accept numbers, and URL fields should only accept valid links. When errors do occur, use plain-language messages that explain what went wrong and how to fix it.
  
  

Simplicity

It’s easy to overcomplicate things, especially when you want to cover every scenario. But simplicity is one of the most powerful ways to improve membership experience. When things are simple, members know what to do next and feel confident moving forward. Simplicity helps your members stay focused on what matters most: making progress toward the goals that brought them into your membership.

Here are ways to design simplicity into your membership:

• Provide just enough information. Ask yourself: do members really need all this information to take the next step? Too little detail leaves them stuck, while too much information overwhelms them. If extra context is helpful, add a short explanation and link to more information instead of cramming everything in one place.
  
  
• Use progressive disclosure. Don’t give everything upfront. Reveal more details as members engage so that they get information at the right time, without overload.
  
  
• Reduce distractions. Members are surrounded by distractions already. Avoid adding more distractions in your membership. This might mean removing flashy elements on your sales page that don’t lead to conversions, or cutting unnecessary channels inside your membership that pull focus from the main goal.
  
  
• Offer fewer options. More is not always better. Too many choices can paralyze members and stop them from taking action. Limit options to what’s essential, whether that’s membership tiers, form fields or membership channels. You can always add more later if members need it.
  
  

Flexibility

Flexibility helps you serve members with different needs, preferences and goals. Not everyone in your membership will be at the same level or available in the same way. Designing for flexibility ensures that more people can succeed inside your membership.

Flexibility is about meeting members where they are. When you design with options in mind, more of your members feel seen and supported.

Here are some ways to build flexibility:

• Provide multiple formats. Some members prefer reading, others prefer watching or listening. For important content like welcome messages or key instructions, offer both written and video versions.
  
  
• Mix synchronous and asynchronous events. Live events build strong connections in your membership, but not everyone can attend. Offering replays, summaries or discussion threads ensures members can engage on their own time. Mix live sessions with asynchronous options so members across time zones or schedules can still participate.
  
  
• Offer flexible navigation. Sequential learning paths are helpful, but not every member wants to follow them step by step. Allow advanced members to skip ahead while giving beginners a clear guided path. This way, everyone can move at the pace that suits them best.
  
  
• Accessibility as flexibility. Closed captions, transcripts, readable fonts and alt text give people more ways to access content. Accessibility is a form of flexibility that broadens who can fully participate.
  
  
• Customizable notifications. Some members want every update, while others prefer a weekly digest. Allowing them to control notifications helps them stay engaged on their own terms.
  
  
• Device flexibility. Make sure the membership experience works well across desktop, tablet and mobile. Members will engage at different times of day and in different contexts using different devices.
  

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Delight

Delight may be the last principle on this list, but it is one of the most powerful. Too often, it gets treated as an add-on to figure out later. In reality, delight should be woven into your membership from the beginning and built upon as you grow.

Why does it matter? Because delight creates stickiness. Members spend much of their day moving through platforms and tasks on autopilot. A small, thoughtful moment of delight breaks that pattern and gives them a feel-good boost they will associate with your membership.

Delight doesn’t have to be big or expensive. Often, it’s the small, human touches that make members smile and keep them coming back. I’ll be sharing a full article on creating delightful moments soon, but for now, start by asking yourself: “What’s one little thing I could add that would make my members’ day?”

Here are a few ways to design delight into your membership:

• Personalize welcomes. A warm welcome note or short video makes new members feel seen right from the start. This is especially important in the age of AI where people aren’t sure if they are engaging with humans or AI generated content.
  
  
• Celebrate milestones. Mark anniversaries, progress milestones or achievements so members feel recognized. This works very well when you include gamification as part of your membership experience.
  
  
• Add surprise touches. Occasional bonuses, shoutouts or unexpected personalized thank-you notes can turn an ordinary interaction into a memorable one.
  
  

Conclusion

These aren’t all the principles of user experience design, but they are some of the most powerful ones you can apply to your membership. Each one is designed to help your members make progress toward the goals that brought them in.

Sometimes these principles can feel like they contradict each other. How do you keep things simple while also providing enough guidance? The answer lies in balance. Always come back to your membership’s main goal and make decisions based on what will best serve your members. What feels right to you may not always resonate in real life, so be willing to test, evaluate and adjust.

This is a lesson that is echoed throughout design thinking, and one that I shared in my review of the book Don’t Make Me Think (check the bonus lesson at the end: There will always be tradeoffs).

In the coming articles, I’ll do deeper explorations into each principle (and many more) to show you how they can be applied step by step in your membership.

P.S. I offer membership experience audits to help entrepreneurs and founders design memberships that are a joy to run and a delight to be part of. If you’d like an audit, you can reach out to me using this link.