Ryan
Krieg
14+ years turning complex problems into loveable digital experiences that drive business results
Senior Experience Designer at Wattpad, a storytelling app used by 100M+ globally
Case Studies
Polls
Comments in stories are a great way to connect on Wattpad, but the majority of readers never left one. Writers needed lightweight ways to engage their fans and get feedback.
I advocated to build polls, created an experiment to validate our direction, and designed the writer creation tool and user-facing polling within the Wattpad reading experience.
In the 5 months since launch, writers have created 764K polls and 56% of readers who see a poll respond, adding up to 21.3M responses.
2025 • Wattpad
Case Study
EXPERIENCE
Wattpad
I collaborate closely with product, research, engineering, and data to influence product roadmaps and release high-quality experiences. I am the design team’s esign systems lead, UX writing lead, cross-functional design lead, and design mentor. Worked across all teams and product areas: advertising, writer success, fan engagement, navigation, content discovery.
2020 - Present (6 years)
CrowdRiff
I was the first hire and worked closely with the CEO and CTO to take a startup from early concepts to finding product-market fit and eventually becoming a successful travel content marketing platform serving 600+ destinations worldwide. I designed multiple complex SAAS marketing tools, website integrations, and live event screens. I created the company’s design brand, established UX design practices, and created their first design system.
2012 - 2019 (7 years)
Product Strategy
Problem Definition
UX Workshops
UX Research
Usability Testing
Information Architecture
Figma
UX Writing
Design Systems
Accessibility
Prototyping
Designing with AI
Design QA
UX/UI Design
Work
Better Story Categorization
Wattpad used a single-category system that forced writers to pick one genre per story, which made it impossible for writers to properly classify their stories so that readers could discover them.
I led discovery and design for a branching categorization that allows writers to classify their stories more accurately across multiple genres, fandoms, and more. I partnered with PM and research to define the information architecture, designed complex journey maps, and planned a phased rollout with writer notifications and category migration.
Enabling multi-genre and fandom classification for the first time will enable future improvements to search and recommendations across Wattpad. Writers are calling it "much needed" and "so rich in options."
2026 • Wattpad
View the release announcement
Dynamic Discovery on Home
Every user on Wattpad saw the same homepage regardless of reading preferences, tenure on the platform, or how much and how they used the app.
I redesigned the discovery experience to personalize story suggestions based on recent search and reading activity. I helped create new, activated, and engaged user segments which I used to adjust which content was shown and in which order. I re-designed the visual hierarchy and design style to allow for easier scanning and for highlighted content to stand out from the rest.
Since release, readers are 7% more likely to begin reading, story conversion is up 15%, and there has been a 66% increase in total story views.
2023-2024 • Wattpad
See it Live on Wattpad
Top 10
Readers were spending a long time trying to find a story to read. Popular and trending stories were being lost amongst the rest of the suggestions on the home discovery page.
I helped define the algorithm for and designed a row that connects users to the 10 most recently popular stories in their country. My guiding principle was that it should feel intuitive — users should understand "what's hot right now" without needing it explained.
The row quickly became one of the highest performing, generating 1.4M story clicks weekly.
2024 • Wattpad
Publishing Scheduler
The 2nd most requested feature by Wattpad writers was a way to schedule chapter releases in advance. Writers needed to establish a consistent publishing cadence and readers were churning from stories with unpredictable updates.
We ran competitive analysis and defined writer personas to inform our solution. I designed the ability to schedule chapters, manage the release schedule, and push notifications for reminders and publish success messages.
1K writers are scheduling 125K chapters every month.
2023 • Wattpad
Media Hub
Tourism organizations using CrowdRiff had no way to share their photos and videos with partners or media, which was costing the company deals.
I synthesized feedback from 350+ customers, ran customer interviews across 3 customer segments, and documented the competitive landscape. I facilitated Lean UX workshops with cross-functional teams to align on the solution. I designed the MVP that let tourism organizations share visual assets with media and partners, followed by 8 iterations covering bulk actions, licensing, approval workflows, bilingual support, and analytics.
It was adopted by 23% of customers, generated $900K in new annual revenue, and grew to 5.2K monthly active users.
2019 • CrowdRiff
