Areas to discover

• Do participants of industry meetings want to make contacts with each other?

• If so, how and what is the role of new technologies?

• If they encounter difficulties, how can they be helped?

Goals

Main goal

Examining the communication processes taking place between the participant and during industry events related to new technologies and design

Specific goals

Understanding the motivation of participants in industry events to make contacts with strangers

Acquiring information on emotions related to establishing contacts and networking at various stages of the meeting

Analysis of the role of new technologies (devices, applications, etc.) in establishing relationships with other participants in events

Research methods used

Interviews

Goal: better understanding of the target group, examination of motivation related to participation in industry events, role analysis networking, the way of establishing and maintaining contacts contained during industry meetings, their quality and structure.

Observation

Goal: to observe the listeners directly during the event

Online survey

Goal: to obtain quantitative data on the habits and behavior of participants in the context of communication

Card sorting

Goal: to get to know the feelings that dominate among the respondents, at different moments of the industry event

Interviews

Recruitment criteria: the respondents were selected based on the screener response analysis:

• 11 single and multiple choice questions and descriptive commands

• people who have expressed their willingness to participate in the study in the last two years qualified participated in at least four industry events related to IT, new technologies, design and design (5 questions)

• the remaining 6 auxiliary questions were aimed at preliminary identification of the personality of potential respondents and their attitude to new technologies and participation in industry events

Factors such as age, place of residence, education were not taken into account because they do not determine participation in industry meetings

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Respondents: 7 men 6 women

Industries: 9 IT 2 Design 2 Finance

Artifacts: 2 Videos 11 audios 13 card sorting​

Average survey time : 45 min

Observation

Observations were conducted at 2 conferences held as part of Word Usability Day:

WUD Silesia 

WUD Kraków 

note: Both meetings at which observations were made were important events for the industry UX, meetings were free and took place on a non-working day. As a result, many participants came to the meeting together with friends from the industry, which could have influenced the result of the observation.

Online survey

Survey was published on Facebook:

posts in thematic groups corresponding to the sample on which interviews were conducted

on the wall of private persons •

sent via Facebook Messenger - as amessage addressed directly to the respondent (15 people)

duration: 4 days 82 answers

51% of the respondents are men, 49% are women

Card sorting

The respondents received a set of 7 moments related to the conference and a set of 8 positive and 8 negative emotions. Their task was to assign feelings to moments according to their own vision

Conclusions from research

Primary objective

To facilitate communication for participants of conferences and industry meetings

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Conclusions:

Conference participants have no major problems with establishing contacts. this facilitates common context - participation in the same presentations and workshops (main staffs).

Only people who participate in the conference for the first time do not approach other people, remain passive and observe the situation.

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New goal

To increase the engagement of participants during the conference.

Additional conclusions

Problem:

a sense of alienation in a large group of unknown people - too many conference participants make it difficult to enter a contact. The strategy for the project: supporting moments where there is the lowest sense of belonging to a group (eg the beginning of a conference)

Solution:

Creating groups and subgroups (you can use meetings in small groups to discuss a topic (open space, open mic), which is a great time to make friends.

Problem:

boredom during uninteresting / too long conference. Project's motivation: activating participants when they have nothing to do, looking for a job, wanting to kill time.

Solution:

a tool that will allow time to develop more productively (many respondents reported that they were for a mobile phone with internet access).

Problem:

participants do not like most of the currently used methods of integration of conference participants (they are referred to as pre-school). Project for the project: to propose an interesting solution that will be closer to the target group.

Solution:

using elements of gamification that will increase participants' involvement and create more opportunities for direct conversation.

Personas

Based on the interviews/surveys we set up three personas. We referred to them throughout the entire product development process.

Value proposition

Problems that wanted to be solved:

• too little involvement of participants during industry events

• boredom and weariness appear

• too little profit for the development of individual participants

Value proposition:

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Participants: Increasing the participants' involvement, help in adapting the event to their own goals, providing participants with transparent information about the event, providing substantive materials and facilitating networking, networking and integration of participants, and making the time spent at the conference more enjoyable through entertainment.

Organizers: First of all: making the event more attractive (satisfied participants are happy organizers), in addition: organizational support, eg streamlining the registration process, promoting the event, feedback from participants, sharing the database.

Speakers: Immediate feedback from listeners about the lecture; the opportunity to reach participants interested in the topic before the conference

Sponsors: Making the sponsored event more attractive, ie creating a positive image of the company on the market, the ability to provide information (also personalized) to participants (eg about recruitment), personalized sponsorship campaigns (eg conference games with a motive indicated by the sponsor)

Companies that send employees to conferences: Verification of the degree of achievement by employees of the objectives set at a given conference by the company, that is, "maximizing profits from delegating an employee to a conference"

Recruitment agencies and HR departments of companies seeking employees: Access to a group of specialists in a given field, the possibility of making meetings with them on the basis of speed dating during the conference

Measures of success - KPI

Basic

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• number of downloads

• number of active users

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Additional

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• number of own goals set by users

• number of implemented system goals

• number of lecture ratings

• number of entries for presentations

• number of opened "open mic" events

• number of clicks on the linkedin (Facebook) profile of users in the application

• a point score obtained in post-conference polls carried out by the organizer

Customer Journey

In order to get to know our users' behavior better, a Customer Journey Map has been created.

User flows

In order to create a MVP version of the application, six user flows were modeled.

Below is an example of four user flows like:

A) Checking the recommendation of the lecture

B) Checking the speaker's biography

C) Choosing an interesting lecture

D) Notification receiving of and request for participation in an open meeting

Sketches

Wireframes

Prototype

Link to an old version of prototype: