Marina.Chat
Marina.chat is a web application that bridges fans and influencers through personalized SMS interactions as a paid service, providing creators with a new revenue stream while deepening audience engagement. Founder Christopher Walsh brought me on to design the platform, where I led the visual design and digital experience across key touchpoints, including the influencer dashboard, messaging portal, marketing homepage, and payment checkout.
My approach focused on crafting a cohesive, visually compelling interface that feels modern, intuitive, and aligned with the needs of today’s creators. Through thoughtful hierarchy, refined typography, and intentional layout, each feature was designed to support seamless interaction while elevating the overall brand experience. The result is a polished digital environment that strengthens influencer management and guides fans effortlessly from discovery to purchase and driving both engagement and monetization.
Duration
Feb 2022 - May 2022
Skills
Visual Design, UI/UX, Branding
Process
Problem
When building out initial sketches and wireframes of Marina.chat, we ran into a few initial problems with the design of the product that could lead to poor user experience in the future.
Minimize steps in the sign up process. Users want to be able to sign up with minimum friction.
Build a clean and intuitive marketing dashboard. A clunky disorganized dashboards leads to a poor experience.
There isn’t a way where influencers could monetize their text conversations with fans. We want to build revenue for our clients.
Product Goals
Build an intuitive product that fosters a relationship between the influencer and the fan.
Help influencers generate revenue with SMS marketing. When fans purchase texting plan, they can directly message influencer.
Strengthen product value when building product features. When new features are rolled out, we want the product to always stay true to the product’s mission.
Efficient workflow. Build a scalable and flexible design system to be used across web and mobile.
Our Users
Features
Marketing homepage
This is the page that we can tell a story, purpose, and mission of Marina.chat. It’s the marketing page that hooks the user into signing up.
Fan subscription payment
This is where the fan can make a payment for the subscription package they choose. Fans can also make select custom amounts. They pay directly on that same page
Chatroom
Influencers can directly chat with their fans. This is the main feature where influencers can make money. They trade their time to text message their fans while generating revenue.
Influencer payment set up
After the influencer signs up their email, they sign up with a payment system. In this flow, the user can create their unique phone number to use for business inquiries when they message their fans.
Dashboard
Marketing data for the influencer to track and handle their revenue.
Influencer Sign up Flow
Our learnings from synthesized research, competitive audit, and product specifications lead to the initial design, the wireframe. Designed for mobile and web.
Fan Sign Up page
Fans can purchase the amount of messages they wish to send the influencers they want to chat with. This is a single page purchasing page. Once they choose their texting package, the page automatically scrolls down to the payment section. Fans also have the option of choosing a custom amount.
Influencer Dashboard flow
The influencer can see how much revenue they have from earning money with their clients (fans). The charts are in preview mode in the dashboard but when you click on the chart, it enlarges as a lightbox to a full-sized view and people can view any report by date.
Chatroom for the influencer
Chatroom between influencer and fan
