Territories began from a vision of connecting writers and readers over niche shared interests. Since its launch, over 100 Territories have been developed on t2. We’ve seen collective storytelling experiments in t/TTPRG, writing competitions in t/FriendsWhoWrite and t/Horror, and cultural communities such as t/SITIO. Through ongoing conversations with our Territory admins and members, we realised that while our initial infrastructure laid the groundwork for Territories, we were only scratching the surface of what Territories can evolve to truly meet the growing needs and visions of each community.
Our team decided to take a step back to reflect internally on what constitutes good design at t2, which led to establishing our design principles — Pluralism, Trust, Circularity, and Sensitivity — which we introduced in Part 1. With the insights from workshops and interviews with new and existing users, we were able to distill down a new scaffolding for the next evolution of Territories: a more dynamic, interactive, and accessible space for community-driven publications. In Part 2, we’ll share the design process, and how we addressed core challenges in navigation, content discovery, and membership pathways.
