Podium

The context

Attendee feedback from past Podium events revealed that current online event platforms did little to drive the attendee experience. The issue is that many of these platforms were trying to recreate traditional events digitally rather than using the benefits of digital to create events.

1000%

Growth in online events
from 2019 to 2020 (Forbes)

The challenge

In a short amount of time, we needed to create an experience for attendees that used the advantages of digital to meet the core needs they have when attending events; learning, networking, and entertainment (Event MB, 2018).

THE AIM

Provide a more robust attendee experience as research suggests this is being neglected in the current marketplace.

Validate a core online event experience and its viability.

Use these learnings to guide any future product development for a fully realised online event platform.

The outcome

90% of users tested found the proposed designs useful.

£27, 000 in new business revenue.

Net promotor score of 80.

The process

Speaking with the
Podium team

Having experience with leading event platforms and observing attendee behaviour first hand, the Podium team was able to help provide perspective on the business rationale and attendee needs around creating events.

stakeholder interviews

3 core user groups (attendees, event managers, and speakers).

2 common event use cases (single day and multi-day events).

Attendee feedback from past events that Podium had run.

Market validation

Analysing customer reviews and competitors, I wanted to learn more about the current perceptions and features that support the attendee event experience. Looking at personalisation and attendee dashboards, I could see that these areas could be improved upon.

Existing personalised features

Big Marker: Ability to mark sessions as favourites.

Hopin: Agenda keyword session searchers and adding sessions to their outlook calendar.

Rainfocus: Offer a range of customisable features at a very high cost where a development team is needed to implement them.

competitor-graph-highlighting-features-and-experiences-that support attendees

Audience identified

Given the small timeframe for this project, we decided to focus more on the attendee experience for the first MVP based on initial research and the fact that 91% of event managers measure the success of their events on attendee satisfaction (EventMB, 2019).

User needs

further learning

Attendees need post-event support to continue learning the topics of interest.

Similar thinkers

Attendees need to connect with peers in a similar industry and profession.

EASE OF USE

With scheduled timings, attendees need to quickly access relevant content.

Entertain me

Attendees need an experience that is engaging and fosters interactive learning.

Understanding
attendees event flow

To help us identify current gaps in the attendee experience, we created a customer journey map to reveal opportunities at different stages of an attendee event life cycle.

One example was thinking about how we could support attendee's continued learning post-event and help answer common questions attendees get from peers “what was your favourite part of the event?". In tandem with improving post-event business goals like increasing virality on social channels.

Opportunity

How might we help attendees seamlessly manage their event experience and support their post-session learnings?

The solution

ONBOARDING

Incorporate preference selection into the platform's onboarding process to support personalised features like recommended sessions and connections.

platform-screenshot-of-preference-selection-options-from-the-podium-platform

attendee Dashboard

A place for attendees to plan their event schedules, see sessions and network connections based on their interests and earn rewards through achievements.

Activity reports

These post-event reports generate feedback on a user's event activity and recommend content based on areas of interest i.e. top 5 session topics.

platform-screenshot-of-activity-report-highlighting-top-5-sessions-topics-engaged-with-from-the-podium-platform

Usability tests

We recruited a total of 5 users. Through the use of a screener, we reviewed people who had attended events at least 3 times a year and who had a mix of multi-day event experiences. Flows were visualised in Figma and sessions were conducted virtually using Zoom and prototypes.

Testing goals:

Test discoverability of the proposed interaction flows.

Test usability of proposed features across solution areas.

Learn more about attendee interests when attending events.

mapping-out-flows-for-usability test-using-figma

Iteration

finding 1: users can’t remember achievements

Attendees want to remember what achievements they’re working towards, which can be difficult across multi-day events. Attendees mentioned that having a reminder for this could provide focus and improve recall. When prompted what would help recall an achievement, one participant said “allow me to put it on my dashboard”.

solution: Set achievement targets

Allow attendees to pin achievements to their dashboards.

Improve achievement recall across multi-day events.

Prompt greater gratification by seeing their accomplished achievements advertised.

platform-screenshot-of-first-version-of-personal-achievements-feature-from-the-podium-platform

finding 2: Attendees expressed Comfort in friendship

Attendees stated that they were more likely to send messages to connections that they’ve added. Users commented that having a friends list would provide a high-level overview of who they’ve connected with so they could more easily start and maintain conversations.

solution: A friends list

Quicker to review and send messages to connections.

Improved association of + icon when adding friends.

Greater incentive to engage with like-minded peers.

platform-screenshot-of-first-version-of-chat-feature-from-the-podium-platform

platform-screenshot-of-newly-added-friends-list-feature-from-the-podium-platform

finding 3: users want to know what they attended

Participants responded positively to the post-event activity reports, adding that this supported their continued learning post-event. However, users mentioned that they lacked feedback on what they'd attended during an event, removing an opportunity for a "sense of accomplishment."

Solution: listing out sessions by topic activity

A high-level contextual overview of sessions attended.

Ability to share sessions they attended with peers.

Increased virality = lower acquisition costs for Podium.

platform-screenshot-of-old-activity-report-with-no-session-list-from-the-podium-platform

platform-screenshot-of-newly-added-session-list-feature-from-the-podium-platform

The result

The dashboard and its features did win new client work. The concept is planned to be built out for the BigMarker platform (current tech partner used by Podium) and sold as a unique podium offering. In this new solution, a new client agreed to Podium organising their 2021 events.

£27,000

earned in new business revenue
from new dashboard solution

90%

90% of user tested
found the dashboard useful

Next steps

We will be tracking the utilisation of these new features to test their effectiveness. Setting parameters around what defines an engaged user will signal the health of its real-world implementation.

Key areas to monitor

Create a benchmark for a high-level view on engagement; 2 connections added and 3 events added to the schedule.

Surveys to understand the impact of features implemented.

Measure the viral coefficient for activity reports.

Reflection

There are many emerging competitors in the online event marketplace as a result of COVD-19, making traditional events difficult to attend. Introducing a new event-management platform could prove to be difficult as barriers to entry strengthen.

More sections need to be completed to achieve the function of an event management product (e.g. webcasting), which would be costly. Seeking a tech partnership with an existing event management platform could be a more viable business decision.

For personalised reports to become more dynamic, it would require the use of machine learning. However, this would require larger sample sizes and a more substantial testing period.

Online event experiences

that are out of this world