To Get Most Out of a Trade Show
BoothIQ Web App Renovation
Overview
BoothIQ is a web app platform supporting trade show organizers, especially bridal, baby, and home show, with the focus on the exhibitors, attendee engagement and post-trade show follow up. The ultimate goal for BoothIQ is to provide an easy solution for the exhibitors to increase Return on investment (ROI) and for attendees to better understand and interact with the exhibitors and the products.
Challenge
The trade show attendees feel untrustful and confused when they get on the web app in a trade show. They don’t know why they need to provide their phone number at first place. After logging in, they got lost in the navigation and can’t effectively find the information they need.
Solution
To make the attendees feel comfortable providing their phone number, an on-boarding flow integrated with the log in process was created.
To make all the steps and functionalities self-explained, the navigation panel was re-designed and the information architecture was re-structured.
Outcome
BoothIQ has planned to implement our design solution into the next launch, which is expected in the end of 2018.
My Role
User research, Strategies, Visual design, Client Communication, Sketch, Prototype
Duration
Teammate
2 weeks
DISCOVER
A Little Bit More About BoothIQ
To understand current business status and challenges through meeting with our client, Prianka, the founder of BoothIQ
Currently, BoothIQ is mainly focusing on thebridal shows since the bridal lead value is hight and the entire market is growing. BoothIQ’s direct consumer is the trade show organizer, and to attract more organizers, they are aiming to increase exhibitor ROI and engage attendees with their web app during and post-trade shows.
BoothIQ’s primary concern would be people attending the trade shows don't know what the web app is for and how it works.
Therefore, they need to allocate staffs at the trade show entrance to help people logging in the web app, informing the features. From BoothIQ’s perspective, it’s not only time-consuming but also costly.
What The User Said
Usability test
5 participants were given the following tasks
Takeaways
DEFINE
Framing The Problems
Through affinity mapping, we synthesized the trends
The high level insights from affinity map
Mapping The Big Picture
We mapped out the user journey to understand how a trade show attendee would experience at each phase of BoothIQ service.
After discussing with BoothIQ, we decided to prioritize the first three pain points (see the yellow circles), focusing on addressing those problems in terms of our time limitation:
Lack of onboarding Process: it’s the primary issue to solve since it not only makes users feel confused thus less willing to use the web app but also costs time the labor force at BoothIQ’s end
Confusion on where to find the information needed: the secondary issue would be to re-structure current information architecture which cause attendee’s frustration
Confusion on the different colors in the listing: the third challenge would be to make the existing color code more distinguished and meaningful
DEVELOP
Let’s dive into the whole experience
User flow
We created a user flow covering BoothIQ service from before to during the trade shows, within to off the web app. As indicated below, what we are addressing would be within the web app.
First of all, we built the oboarding process to make sure the users feel safe and knowledgable before log in.
Secondly, we re-organized the navigation system and added filter on the listing page “All Offers & Contents” so that the users would have easier access to the information they need.
1. Designing Onboarding Process
Paper Prototype
We first started with sketching & paper prototyping, and simultaneously getting feedback.
Feedback and Iteration for Paper Prototype
BoothIQ would like users to be able to log in on first step to save time while the users felt the brief Introduction and the tutorial pages at beginning helps in terms of understanding what this web app is for and how it works.
To reach a balance between the stakeholder and users, we decided to
Combine the welcome page and the log in page
Add a “Learn More” button
In this case, users can log in as soon as possible while they still have the option to know more about this app before log in
Low-Fidelity Mock-up
Feedback and Iteration for Low-Fidelity
The feedback we got from the lo-fi mock-up was that the layout of the text and icon made it not easy to read. In addition, since the on-boarding process is the facade of this app, making the style consistent with BoothIQ’s fashion. Therefore, what we would iterated in the Hi-fi mock-up are:
High-fidelity mock up
2. Evolving the Navigation and Information Structure
Paper Prototype
Feedback and Iteration for Paper Prototype
BoothIQ was convinced that the segmented control and new navigation makes sense and make the promotions easy to find.
Users reflected that the navigation was clear. But the “Pin the Exhibitor” icon was confusing at first place
Therefore, what we would like to change is:
Add text “Pin Company” to make the icon clear
Add company’s website and social media to ehibitor’s list
Low-Fidelity Mock-up
Feedback and Iteration
Feedback from the Sketch and the Lo-fi mock up showed positive reactions toward the new modification. Therefore, what we would iterate into the hi-fi mock up are:
Add detailed information and micro-adjust layout
Integrate with BoothIQ’s style guide
High-Fidelity Mock-up
Let’s Pull Everything Together
Reflection and Moving Forward
UX design is to balance the business goal and user needs
I understood the business need would be to get the users onboard as soon as possible while the users would like to know more about what the app is before/while they log in. To make a good design, we spent a lot of time communicating with each end and eventually reached a point that allows the users to start the logging process at first step, at the same time they also have the option to see the details on what the app is and how it works. Through this practice, I learned to prioritize the most valued needs, but never give up.
Understand the beauty of an industry by diving in the challenges it is facing
By understanding the bottlenecks of getting users onboard the web app during a bridal trade show, we also saw how huge the opportunity could be. There are so many people who need to get accurate information, and there are exhibitors ready to spread their promotions. As we getting to know the crowd size and the gap between the exhibitors and the attendees, we see a glowing industry and our job is to build a strong and well-functioned bridge between them.