Reddit Sponsored Capstone
2026
Designing for Belonging
Overview
Designing for belonging starts by recognizing different forms of participation and meeting people where they are.
Reddit brings people together around shared interests. Our challenge was to understand how Reddit might encourage people who primarily read, or “lurk,” to feel a stronger sense of belonging within their communities.
We questioned the assumption that belonging requires people to become more active and visible. Instead, we explored how Reddit could recognize and support quieter forms of participation, creating more ways for people to feel connected to their communities.
Thoughts
Creating low-stakes, temporary spaces for casual conversation.
Felt Presence
Making the invisible presence of a community visible.
Problem
Reddit calls itself a community of communities. But what does it mean to belong when you’re watching from the sidelines?
A lurker is defined as someone who reads content in an online community without actively posting or commenting.
Over 90% of reddit users are considered lurkers.
We conducted 8 interviews with Reddit users and members of other online and in-person communities to understand how people participate and form a sense of belonging.
Challenge
How might we create more opportunities for belonging, without requiring lurkers to change their way of participating?
Design Strategy
Two complimentary ways to lower the barrier to belonging
Our research revealed that people experience barriers to belonging in different ways.
Group 1: Hesitant participants
Want to contribute but hold back because of the social risks involved in posting or commenting.
Group 2: Content observers
Are comfortable reading without posting or commenting, but don’t necessarily feel a sense of belonging within the community.
We explored two complementary approaches:
Thoughts | Felt Presence | |
|---|---|---|
Barrier Addressed | Fear of contributing | Feeling alone or invisible |
Approach | Creates a new way to participate | Recognize existing participation |
Behavior | Introduces a new interaction | Requires no new behavior |
Visibility | More visible, but lower-stakes | Visible as anonymous presence |
Belonging | Through casual interaction | Through co-presence |
Impact
Impact
01 Reducing the Risk of Self-Expression
By making posts temporary and removing comments, Reddit Thoughts reduced the pressure to self-censor and the vulnerability of sharing publicly. Users felt more comfortable expressing themselves without worrying about lasting judgment or unwanted responses.
“It’s not going to last anyways. So I use it with a little bit less… internal quality control.”
— P2 (usability test)“It’s nice to know that you can share something without having to have the inevitable, like, 30 other people comment on what you said.”
— P1 (usability test)
02 Turning Invisible Activity Into Connection
Felt Presence made otherwise invisible community activity visible, helping users recognize that others were sharing the same experience. Seeing themselves as part of this collective presence fostered a sense of connection without requiring direct interaction.
“The stars, like the constellations of these people, are connected by the post that they’re currently reading right now. And I’m a part of that.”
— P4, (usability test)
03 Creating More Paths to Belonging
Together, the concepts challenged our assumption that belonging requires more posting. Instead, they expanded participation to include lower-stakes contributions and shared experiences, creating more ways for people to feel connected without increasing posting volume.
“This isn’t replacing posting, but it’s a thing that lives alongside posts … an opportunity to practice contributing in a lower-stakes way.”
— Steven Hawkins, Reddit“I could see this being a way to decrease the overall number of posts being made while increasing the overall level of contributions.”
— Ty Williams, Reddit
Reflection
Final Thoughts
Reframing the "lurker"
Through research and my perspective on neuroinclusive design, I questioned the assumption that lurking is a behavior to fix. This shifted our approach from moving people toward posting to recognizing existing participation and creating lower-pressure ways to engage when they want to.
Designing within complex community ecosystems
Each Reddit community has its own norms, culture, and moderation practices. Through conversations with moderators, we learned to consider not just whether a feature helps an individual redditor, but how it might shape moderation and interactions across the subreddit.
Narrowing the audience sharpened the design
We initially approached our users broadly as “Redditors,” but found that participation varies across users and communities. Focusing on lurkers in large-scale communities gave us a clearer context and allowed us to design more intentionally for their specific barriers.
Next Steps
From Protoype to Community Pilot
Our next step is to build the concepts in Reddit’s Devvit platform and test them in real communities.
An r/AmITheAsshole moderator expressed interest in piloting Reddit Thoughts and Felt Presence. We’d gather feedback from members and moderators to evaluate and iterate on the concepts in practice.
