Designers
Designers
Designers
Tricycle Compass
A habit-forming practice companion that turns Tricycle’s archive into guided daily journeys.
Key Words
Designers
Nanda Sanchez Avella
Erin Chang
Giulia Schrappe
SUMMARY
Tricycle came to us with a discovery problem: AI summaries and zero-click search are shrinking traffic, and new readers don’t naturally return. Through desk research, stakeholder inputs, and user interviews, we found that people trust Tricycle but struggle to see membership value and to know “what to do next.” We designed Tricycle Compass: an app + quarterly guided journal that turns Tricycle’s archive into a Year of Practice with clear pathways, short daily sessions, reflection prompts, and community touchpoints: building retention, habit, and tangible membership value.
challenge
Key gaps emerged: (1) Discovery is declining: organic traffic share dropped from 30% to 15% since Jan 2024, and search is increasingly zero-click. (2) On-site experience doesn’t guide progression; users read one piece and leave. (3) Membership value isn’t immediately legible: people don’t pay for information, they pay for guidance, belonging, and structure. (4) Tricycle’s depth is hard to surface without overwhelm. We identified these through desk research, stakeholder conversations, and interviews/testing feedback.
Outcome
We propose Tricycle Compass, a retention-first membership experience. The outcome includes: a mobile app organized around a daily rhythm, a “Year of Practice” with monthly guided journeys built from Tricycle’s archive, short daily sessions that fit real routines, gentle streaks and progress signals, and a quarterly guided journal shipped with the magazine to make membership tangible. This directly addresses the core need: turn trust into repeat engagement and subscription growth in an AI-discovery era.
MEET THE Designers:
Nanda Sanchez Avella
Erin Chang
Giulia Schrappe