Case Study
Etherally Communities
Reimagining community discovery as an experience, not just a directory.
The challenge
A community directory can quickly become a wall of listings.
The opportunity was to make Etherally Communities feel more like a place to explore, discover and connect with the Ethereum ecosystem.
Explore — Make the ecosystem feel global and discoverable.
Discover — Help people find communities by geography, interests and curation.
Narrow — Make a large directory easy to search and filter.
Trust — Make the curation layer visible.
Participate — Give users a clear path to communities and contribution.
The experience
Explore → Discover → Narrow → Trust → Participate
The page moves users from broad exploration into increasingly specific discovery.
Explore
Start with the global ecosystem.
Discover
Surface curated and new communities.
Narrow
Search and filter when intent becomes specific.
Trust
Explain how content is curated.
Participate
Connect users with communities and invite contribution.
01 — Navigation + Hero
Establish the experience quickly,
then get out of the way.
Navigation
Clear hierarchy — Core ecosystem areas remain accessible without competing with the page.
Action priority — Submit Community is the primary action; Sign in remains secondary.
Progressive disclosure — Mobile navigation collapses into a menu to preserve space while keeping the same destinations available.
Action hierarchy — Primary and secondary CTAs remain accessible inside the mobile menu.
Hero
Immediate context — Users understand what the page is before interacting.
Search at entry — Known intent can move directly into discovery.
Visual focus — The restrained background treatment gives the hero atmosphere without adding another competing element.
Scale signal — Vanity metrics reinforce the breadth of the directory.
02 — Explore the Ethereum ecosystem
The globe turns geography into part of the discovery experience.
Global context — Countries become discoverable surfaces rather than passive map decoration.
Density as a signal — Marker size communicates where community activity is concentrated.
Preview before commitment — Hover reveals useful context without opening a deeper state.
Progressive disclosure — Users move from country-level discovery toward individual communities as they zoom in.
Country hover
The tooltip answers three questions immediately:
Where is this? How much is here? How many locations?
Region
Country + flag
Community count
Location count
03 — From country to community
From a global map to the communities inside it.
Contextual drill-down
Country selection — Selecting a country opens its communities without taking users away from the globe.
Scannable first state — Smaller community sets are shown directly without adding unnecessary search.
Search when scale demands it
Larger sets — Search appears when manual scanning becomes less efficient.
Sticky return path — Back to Globe remains available while the list scrolls.
Threshold-based search — Smaller sets stay browseable; larger sets gain direct search.
04 — Community profile
Give the community enough context
to take the next step.
Two routes, one destination — Users can reach a community through the country list or directly from an individual globe marker.
Progressive disclosure — Deeper information appears as intent increases.
Identity first — Name, location, image and description establish context quickly.
Curation signal — The star provides a persistent visual cue for curated communities.
Connected ecosystem — Available Twitter, Discord and Telegram links are surfaced directly.
Clear next step — Visit Community Website remains the primary action.
05 — Mobile globe experience
Preserve the discovery model,
change the interaction pattern.
Touch-first exploration — Drag and pinch replace desktop interaction patterns.
Bottom-sheet country states — Users can inspect communities while retaining the globe context.
Expanded discovery — Larger community sets introduce search without changing the overall journey.
Full-screen profile — Community details get enough room once the user moves deeper.
The interaction model
Globe → Country → Communities → Profile
The structure remains consistent across devices even though the interaction pattern changes.
06 — Communities Worth Knowing
Discovery does not always start with search.
Curated communities create an easier starting point for people who are still figuring out where they belong.
Curated discovery — Featured communities create an immediate starting point.
Recognisable identity — The curation star remains attached to the community wherever it appears.
Scannable content — Location, description, focus and format are visible before opening the card.
Horizontal discovery — Mobile uses a horizontal rail to preserve vertical space while signalling that more communities are available.
07 — Community card system
The card is intentionally concise.
Curation marker
A persistent visual signal for communities curated by Etherally.
Community identity
Name and location establish relevance immediately.
Controlled description
Descriptions truncate to maintain consistent card rhythm and reduce visual noise.
Focus + format
Tags communicate what the community is about; Local/Online communicates how it operates.
Interaction cue
The directional arrow appears on hover to reinforce that the card is actionable.
Progressive disclosure
The initial card answers: “Is this relevant to me?”
Deeper information follows through interaction.
08 — Explore All Communities
The utility layer for intentional discovery.
Search and filters turn the broad directory into a focused working space without removing the ability to browse.
Search first — Users can move directly toward a known community.
Layered filters — Region, country, format and focus support different discovery strategies.
Three-column desktop grid — Balances directory density with readable community information.
Two-line descriptions — More compact than the featured cards to support a larger result set.
Search stays visible — The primary discovery action remains immediately accessible on mobile.
Filters collapse — Complex controls move into a bottom sheet.
Format stays visible — All / Local / Online remains a quick toggle.
Single-column results — Preserves the same hierarchy at a narrower width.
09 — Search + filtering
Progressive refinement, from broad filters to specific results.
Region → Country → Focus
Dependent country filtering — Country options respond to the selected region.
Multi-select — Users can combine multiple regions, countries and focus areas.
Format toggle — All / Local / Online stays simple and immediate.
Visible active state — Selected filters become chips so users can see exactly what is affecting results.
Filter state
Stable ordering — Region, country and focus selections stay grouped by category rather than jumping based on selection order.
Clear all — One action resets the full filter state.
Result awareness — The directory updates as the filter state changes.
This follows recognition over recall: users do not have to remember what they selected.
10 — Mobile filtering
Complex filtering without taking over the directory.
Filters move into a bottom sheet on mobile so the directory itself stays focused and readable.
Progressive disclosure — Filters appear only when needed.
Selected counts — Users can see how many options are active in each category.
Large touch targets — Filter chips are intentionally easier to tap and dismiss.
Apply deliberately — The primary Apply Filters action appears once the user has selected something.
Clear outcome — Empty states explain that no communities were found and give users a direct recovery action.
11 — Designed to scale
The browsing model can evolve with the directory.
Current
Load a small set, then load more on demand.
At larger scale
A much larger directory would need a more search-first browsing model or stronger pagination.
Design principle
The experience should evolve with the size of the directory.
12 — New to the Directory
Freshness gives the directory
a reason to change.
A changing directory gives returning users another reason to explore.
Freshness signal — “Updated regularly” makes change visible.
Return value — Newly added communities give users something different to discover.
Dynamic by design — The section can expand based on what currently qualifies as new.
13 — What Makes the Cut
Built on trust. Powered by community.
A curated directory becomes more valuable when users understand what sits behind the list.
Ecosystem Signals
The ecosystem is continuously producing communities, activity and information.
Discovery
Etherally looks across those signals to surface relevant communities.
Filtering
Quality and security considerations narrow what gets surfaced.
Verified Feed
The result is a cleaner discovery layer represented by the strongest visual treatment.
Continuous Cross-Platform Discovery — Find relevant communities across the ecosystem.
Strict Quality & Security Filtering — Apply quality and security criteria before surfacing content.
Clean Feed of Verified Ecosystem Insights — Give users a more focused, trustworthy discovery experience.
14 — Trusted throughout the ecosystem
The curation story explains the mechanism. Community voices add the human perspective.
Community voices — Testimonials show that trust is not communicated only through the interface.
Context matters — Names, roles and organisations give each voice credibility.
Responsive continuity — The same evidence moves from three columns to a mobile stack without changing the message.
15 — Find your people
Move users from discovery toward participation.
Browse — Continue exploring communities.
Contribute — Submit a community so others can discover it.
Two-sided value — Etherally becomes both a discovery layer and a contribution point.
A softer ending
The final blur treatment stays within the Find Your People section.
The footer uses the website’s solid background color, creating a clean visual close while keeping the atmospheric treatment contained within the CTA section.
16 — Responsive system
The mobile experience is not simply a scaled-down desktop.
The structure changes where the task requires it while the information architecture stays consistent.
Navigation
Collapsed menu
Featured communities
Horizontal rail
Country discovery
Bottom sheet
Community profile
Full-screen overlay
Directory
Single-column results
Filtering
Bottom sheet
Actions
Touch-friendly controls
Reflection
A community directory can become a discovery experience.
This exploration pushed the Communities page beyond a conventional directory. The final experience combines:
Geographic exploration —
Curated discovery —
Search + filtering —
Trust + verification —
Community participation —