Case Study: Mobile App for Upcoming Speaking Events

Primary contributions:

• User persona and story mapping
• Art direction and style guide
• Wireframing
• High-fidelity prototyping

Role:

UX/UI Design, Product Ideation

INITIAL IDEA

Our initial concept was to make an app for event speakers rather than attendees. 

In his conversations with professional speakers, the Product Manager noticed a common frustration – it can be difficult to find venues to speak at. Our goal was to design a solution that would connect professional speakers with venues willing to host events.

Based on a flow map that the Product Manager had created for the app, I put together a low-fidelity prototype demonstrating the onboarding process, the event planning process for both speaker and venue personas, and the event promotion flow. Here are a few samples:

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

After I mocked up the initial designs, the Product Manager continued speaking with potential users to gauge interest in the product and gain additional insight to improve the designs. 

We then ran into an issue – we realized that we didn’t have a solid understanding of the venue landscape and the venue owner persona. Although speakers obviously wanted to book more speaking events, venues were all over the place in terms of their goals. Additionally, topics were hard to nail down.

After some thought, we decided to table the idea for the time being. 

PURSUING ANOTHER DIRECTION

Looking back at our user research, it was clear that people were excited about speaking events in general. Most of the speakers and venue owners that the Product Manager spoke with were interested in attending events in addition to hosting them. They wanted a platform where they could browse upcoming events in their area.

After reviewing our user research findings, we pivoted to an entirely new idea – design an application where people can find speaking events related to their interests and purchase tickets.

USER PERSONA

Based on the Product Manager’s earlier user interviews, I created a user persona.

In summary, the user is a professional looking to attend local speaking events that are relevant to her field. She enjoys networking, considers herself a lifelong learner, and want to gain new insights that she can apply to her work.

One aspect that sets our target user apart is that the she is already an expert in her field. She doesn’t want to learn about the basics and prefers content that is geared towards an expert-level understanding of the topic.

USER STORY MAPPING 

After gaining a better understanding of the user, I created a story map to help lay out the main flows in the application.

In the story map, I decided to focus on three main flows: onboarding, browsing events, and purchasing a ticket.

Onboarding

In the onboarding process, I focused on identifying user interests in order to determine what types of events to display to the individual user.

Because the user is typically only interested in one or two topics of a professional nature, I planned to automatically filter out upcoming events that would be irrelevant to the user’s interests.

Browsing events

In the event browsing flow, I wanted to give users the freedom to:

• Filter events by topic
• View event summaries
• Access more detailed event descriptions
• View event attendees

Keeping in mind that the typical user enjoys the social aspect of events, I prioritized displaying a list of attendees for each event posted.

Purchasing tickets

I outlined the ticket purchasing process to be simple and quick for the busy professional user. Virtual tickets provided in the app help to facilitate a seamless and paper-free transaction.

Because the user likely has friends and colleagues with similar interests, I wanted to give the user the option to share events both before and after the ticket purchasing process.

WIREFRAMES

After putting together the user story map, I moved on to wireframing. In creating the wireframes for the app, I focused on laying out a basic design that incorporates the flow outlined in the user story map.

I decided to design the app for mobile first. Designing for mobile first is considered best practice. Also, a mobile app is likely the most convenient option for the busy professional user who want to be able to browse speaking events anytime, any place when they have a few moments to spare.

ART DIRECTION

Before starting on high-fidelity designs, I designed the branding and put together a style guide for the app.

Branding

Originally, the Product Manager named the app “SpeakEasy.” This made sense at the time because the original app was targeted at speakers rather than attendees.

I changed the name from “SpeakEasy” to “Symposium” to convey the app’s updated purpose. Symposium is defined as “a conference or meeting to discuss a particular subject” or “a social gathering at which there is free interchange of ideas” [Merriam-Webster]. These definitions reflect the user’s goals to gain knowledge and network with peers.   

Style Guide

Symposium’s overall style is modern, professional, and social with a touch of fun.

Logo

The Symposium logo features two semi-circular formations of dots and lines centered around the Symposium S, reminiscent of an audience gathered around a stage.

Colors

For the primary theme color, I decided on bright purple because it is bright and exciting yet still reads as professional. Purple is also often associated with ambition, wisdom, and creativity.

Font

The main fonts I used in the app are Lato Heavy and Lato Regular. Many users will be familiar with Lato from applications they use at work on a daily basis, such as Slack. By applying this font to Symposium, my goal was to make an association between Symposium and the user’s professional life.

HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

After more sketching and iterating on the initial wireframes, I started on the Symposium prototype. In creating a high-fidelity prototype, I applied the style guide elements to the wireframes and tweaked several elements in order to create a consistent and seamless flow. These are the final designs:

Onboarding

Browse events & View event details

Purchase ticket & Share event

View ticket

REVIEW & CRITIQUE

The final version of the application allows users to browse events, purchase tickets, and share events with friends and colleagues.

Room for improvement

Looking back at our full process, I think we could have expanded on our user research.

The Project Manager performed several interviews with speakers and attendees to get an idea of user demographics and goals. However, we neglected to gather additional user details. Consequently, I had to make several assumptions about the user while creating the user persona.

In the future projects, I plan on gaining a more thorough understanding of users through detailed user research before moving on to the design phase.  

Moving forward

Since completing this project, I have identified several potential areas of growth for Symposium.

Firstly, I think users would appreciate a separate view of all events in their area so that they could explore a wider variety of speaking events. Although our target user is mainly interested in one or two professional topics, the user might find it interesting to explore ideas in other fields.

Additionally, I think companies would benefit from being able to send groups of employees to speaking events for the purpose of professional development. In the future, we might consider enabling companies to purchase bundles of tickets for their teams.