Surface Digital was a Melbourne-based UX consultancy I founded, focused on designing and building high-performing digital products and services. MemberHQ was developed in-house, scaling from a client engagement into the platform adopted across Australia’s professional sports industry and other member-based organisations.

Problem

Membership for professional sports teams was historically driven by direct mail — printed forms, manual processing, and delayed revenue cycles.

Collingwood Football Club engaged Surface Digital to bring this experience into the browser.

Rather than replicate the form, we redesigned membership as a conversion-focused digital product and underlying system — combining purchase experience, product configuration, and operational tooling into a single platform.

Key Challenges

• Replace a trusted paper process without reducing conversion

• Simplify complex membership and pricing models

• Unify fragmented systems (CRM, payments, commerce, events)

• Support both enterprise clubs and resource-constrained teams

• Align with campaign-driven marketing across all channels

• Design for scale beyond the initial client

Approach

1. We designed MemberHQ as a conversion system, grounded in real-world behaviour:

• Step-based flows mirroring paper form completion

• Integrated payments to remove drop-off

• Minimal cognitive load at each stage
  
  

2. Membership was redefined as a flexible product system:

• Unlimited products and pricing tiers

• Add-ons, bundles, recurring payments
  
  

3. Behind the interface, we built a unified platform:

• CRM (single member view)

• Payments (fully embedded)

• Commerce and events
  
  

4. The admin experience was designed as a performance tool:

• Dashboard tracking conversion and revenue

• Tools to create and manage membership products and offers in real time
  
  

5. The consumer experience was fully customisable:

• UI aligned to each club’s membership campaign

• Seamless with above and below the line marketing

Outcome

• 80%+ of renewals completed online

• Significant reduction in manual processing

• Faster revenue collection

Over 5 years:

• Membership at Collingwood Football Club nearly doubled to 80,793 members

• A record for the AFL and Australian sport at the time

Scale and adoption:

• 26 elite professional sporting organisations signed across AFL, NRL, Big Bash League, NBL, Netball Victoria, and Queensland Rugby

• Including 10 of 18 AFL teams

• Adopted by 30% of Australia’s professional sports teams within 3 years

• Became the de facto platform across the league

  
  

  
  

MemberHQ Admin UI (Backend)

Branded Consumer Websites (Frontend)