Business Media Platform –
Building Audience Engagement
A business media platform’s approach to staying ahead in a shifting landscape
2023 | Instrument
Team makeup: Visual designers, Producers, Lead UX Strategist + Myself, as a Senior UX Strategist
This project involved: UX Strategy, IA, Product Design, Web
My Contribution: I finalized the design of a quiz feature that helped event attendees discover content and personalize their experience. It was adapted from web into an in-app only feature.
For NDA purposes, modifications have been made to the work shared below. Otherwise, what is represented is an accurate depiction of my individual contribution and the work of my teammates.
Project Background
Who, What, and Why?
We partnered with our client to launch a business media platform that meets professionals where they are in our always-on digital-first world, and help them become industry experts. Business professionals and leaders across a variety of industries freely access this content whether during a live event, or on-demand amid the busyness of their day-to-day schedules.
As the media and event landscape continue to shift to meet ever-changing consumer needs and behaviors, platforms and services missing the mark are quickly abandoned in favor of those offering highly relevant and intuitive experiences.
The Opportunity
Enhance event engagement for both in-person and virtual attendees by introducing new in-app and desktop experiences for a well-known and highly anticipated upcoming annual event
User Research & Business Impact
Grounded in the audience data
Our team relied on existing user personas birthed from prior months of qual and quant research and secondary research to inform our experience goal; in conjunction with known business priorities, we created success metrics
The Audience
Practitioners
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Want hands-on experience and to expand their network
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May desire moderate-heavy guidance to the right content
Middle Managers
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Want to stay on top of industry trends and share content
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May desire light-moderate guidance to the right content but know what they want
Upper Managers
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Want thought-leadership and inspiration from industry experts
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Open to guidance but also know what they want
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Need quick and simple for navigation and content consumption
Shared Audience Needs
Content discoverability
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Content directly related to their interests and objectives
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Multiple pathways to content by topic, industry, and/or goal
Personalization
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Curated recommendations
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An accessible destination to manage and share saved content
Community
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Building connections over shared interests, industry, or goals
Education & Value props
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Communicate the platform value by providing timely information
Business Drivers
Audience Reach
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Increase unique views of live and on-demand content
Content engagement
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Increase content watch time of live content
Conversions
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Increase new member sign-up
Funnel progression
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Increase click-through rate
We brought forth 12+ initial concepts, prioritized those that aligned closest with key business drivers, and as a team took a divide and conquer approach
I was responsible for fleshing out the quiz concept which would boost content discoverability and add personalization to the event experience
UX Strategy
Defining the experience
The quiz would be an on-page module which, upon completion, displays personalized event content recommendations. Event attendees would be able to view session details and add sessions directly into their event agenda.
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Access to the quiz experience was necessary in several places on the site, and would need to easily translate to an app experience. To reduce dev lift, the entry point would repurpose an existing card component that already flexed well across devices.
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The actual quiz experience would be net new. Data input and results would need to feel worth the user effort yet the underlying logic would need to be simple enough to quickly implement and the experience itself would need to feel fast.
User flow
Event attendees begin on the homepage or event detail page. They interact with the quiz, answering 3 - 5 questions, and receive curated content suggestions.
The quiz component
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positioned for high visibility and easy discovery yet not above more pertinent event details
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contains brief messaging and a clear CTA
The quiz experience
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opens on a new page
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contains between 3 - 5 questions, a mix of single- and multi-select responses
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questions collect information about current industry, interests, and goals
Personalized results
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page refreshes to display relevant session suggestions based on responses
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sessions can be directly added to an event agenda
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users can click deeper to view more detailed information
Defining the quiz parameters
In as few questions as possible, we needed to gather user data that would ultimately feed into an algorithm to output highly relevant event content suggestions.
Based on user research and data we knew would have high business impact, this initial release would contain 3 questions to understand attendee expectations and interests. Career and industry data was already collected as part of event registration.
User testing revealed that the experience overall felt easy to understand and intuitive for users. The payoff of seeing personalized results felt equal to the user effort.
Design Outcome
Visualized designs
Our client’s highly anticipated event draws in tens of thousands of attendees worldwide every year. The high volume of attendees who use the events app resulted in a strategy pivot made by our client’s leadership and internal teams.
To capture a wider audience, encourage app downloads, and provide at-hand (literally) enhancements to the event experience, this quiz was piloted in-app only. With the nature of our team makeup, the final design and implementation was executed by our mobile app team in conjunction with the client’s dev team.
