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Freeman

Enhancing Live Audience Participation

Improved live audience engagement at conferences and trade events with mobile participation features and conference tools for participants, AV techs, & moderators.

Contribution

Built and launched a mobile & desktop app that reached 40,000 live attendees.

Improved attendee & presenter conference experience.

Established an in-field UX testing practice

Tools

Adobe XD

Webflow

Duration

12 months

Launched 2018

Introduction

Second Screen Engagement Platform

Enables seamless two-way dynamic participation, allowing presenters and audiences to interact, fostering impactful real-time conversations during presentations.

  • Personalize

  • Chat

  • Ask questions

  • Take notes

  • Follow a presentation

Audience members can use their mobile devices to follow along a live presentation.

Sync Introduction

Personas

Three key users

Audience

Mobile users

Participate in polling and ask questions

Watch the presentation and take notes

Moderator

Desktop

Moderates audience streams

Works with presenter to address questions

AV Tech

All devices

Run the behind the scenes tech

Operate presentation software & AV tech

Usage

Typical usage at mid-to-large conferences

What I worked on :

Audience Participation Tools

Live Audience Voting

We presented familiar voting patterns (multiple choice, thumbs up) as large touch points to get users attention and inspire their interaction.

Various polling options mobile interaction.

Audience Participation Tools

Live Audience Question Stream

A side drawer opens on demand by users when they are ready to submit and vote on questions to presenters.

Question stream mobile drawer interaction.

Tech Control Center

Desktop Control Center for AV Techs

Key design features:

  • Dark mode for comfort in dark conference rooms

  • Incorporated familiar design patterns identified in other AV/Tech software to minimize learning curve

UX Testing

Freeman’s First Ever In-Field Study & UX Testing

Leading up to the conference, I was able to convince the leadership team and the client to do usability and experience testing. At the conference, I was able to conduct UX tests, interview attendees, and do in-field observations of how the new features are used. Here are the top three pain points that I observed.

Top three pain points

  1. Editing submitted questions lacks feedback

  2. Activity when filters are ON makes moderators nervous that they may miss something

  3. Moderators are overwhelmed by the Presenter Control panel on desktop

ASCO conference 2018, photo taken by me.

ASCO conference 2018, photo taken by me.

Iterative Changes after UX Testing

Simplified moderation with mobile controls

Key design features:

  • Dark mode for users’ eye comfort - and less disturbance to fellow attendees.

  • Bottom aligned buttons and menus for thumb comfort.

  • Controls like hide and block to empower moderators.

  • Simpler controls than full desktop dashboard focused on the main task of moderation.

Iterative Changes after UX Testing

Brought forward unseen question count

Moderators would miss questions when filters were turned on. Adding a link that clears the filters with a live question count allows for moderators to see incoming information they would otherwise miss.

Iterative Changes after UX Testing

Displayed system feedback when editing

Originally, editing a submitted question was hidden and the controls unknown. By adding controls and feedback to the design, the users are able to know the state that their edits are in.

Final Takeaways

  1. The in-the-wild testing was great but we needed to conduct them more regularly. At least prior to any major new feature release.

  2. The tech admin feedback is critical. Often their gripes with the product are overshadowed by the Clients needs. We need to develop a standardized way of collecting on-show-site feedback about THEIR experiences. They are the ones who engage with the product the most.

  3. Need to train on-show-site staff to conduct interviews with presenters and attendees in order to gather more data about the product.