Workiva User Conference Registration
Workiva is a provider of the world's leading connected reporting and compliance platform. Each year Workiva hosts an annual user conference with 2,000+ attendees. Through analysis of our current state, competitor research, wireframing, and usability testing we built a registration system in house.
TEAMS INVOLVED
UX Design, Events Team, Web Development, and Digital Marketing
Workiva's User Conference brings together thousands of people who want to increase trust in their data and reduce risk throughout their organizations.
This conference provides training, professional development sessions, a chance to earn CPE (Continued Professional Education) credits, and networking with peers, thought leaders, and Workiva experts in accounting, finance, reporting, and compliance.
PRELIMINARY PROBLEM
Concept
The current state of the registration used outdated systems through a third-party vendor. The system's limited customization made the registration process confusing for users and produced multiple issues that often required a human response to these issues. Since the conference audience is primarily accountants who are required to earn CPE credits each year, we needed to develop a system that could address these issues, while also following guidelines for CPE approved courses.
How can we streamline the registration process and allow for users to complete the registration process without assistance?
GOAL
Identify key problem areas within the registration process and determine key features necessary to complete registration for the conference.
DISCOVER
Competitive Analysis
A feature inventory comparison was completed to identify where competitors fell short.
To determine what features were necessary to add to our registration flow and agenda builder our team researched both direct competitors and comparators. We used a feature inventory comparison to identify strengths and weaknesses found within the registration flow, agenda, check out, and session details.
Direct Competitors
Certant Summit, Domopalooza, Work Day Rising, Tableau, InTheBlack
Comparators
Adobe MAX, Autodesk, Microsoft Ignite, Oracle Open World, Nike, Patagonia
Key Takeaways
Many of the direct competitors registration flows, required approvals before registering, however many we were able to access lacked hierarchy of content and limited ability to register for multiple users.
Larger conferences organized sessions by date or session track, with multiple filters. Many offered different pass types, with promotions based on timing vs code-based discounts. Some used iconography/color to represent tracks, however it was not obvious to new users what the icons represent.
METHOD
Interviews with the events team
Analysis of incident reports
DISCOVER
User Research
The affinity mapping method was used to synthesize results and identify patterns.
An analysis of incident reports and a series of interviews were conducted to gain insight into what features were missing from the current platform and key issues users ran into while going through the registration flow.
Pain Points
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System only allowed for conference registration + check out. Course registration was done through a different system
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Generic email confirmations resulted in off-brand communication and came off as not-trustworthy
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Limited branding on registration site
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Registration flow complicated and confusing to users
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No option to input if registering for another person
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Group discounts had to be applied and issued manually after registration completed
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Not able to join waitlist for booked courses or see current capacity of courses
DEFINE
User Flow
In the discovery with the events team, we identified four major users to solve for in the registration flow and check out.
USERS
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Non-app users (prospects)
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App-users (customers)
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Non-attendee (Sponsors/Partners, Press, Financial Analysts, Speakers, Third Party Analysts)
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Employees
DESIGN
High-Fidelity Wireframes
A series of hand drawn sketches were created to test basic content arrangement and layout options. These were then translated into high-fidelity wireframes to test and identify user's understanding of the registration flow.
METHOD
Using high-fidelity wireframes with past attendees, employees, and additional UX team members
DESIGN
Usability Testing
Using the high-fidelity wireframes, usability tests were conducted to find friction points or areas of confusion for users. Refinements were made based on those findings for the completed registration site.
User Tasks
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Complete a registration for a group through check out.
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Register for two available courses on Tuesday and read 'John Smith' speaker biography.
Key Findings and Results
Original wireframes displayed the check out directly after selecting tickets, causing confusion when users then needed to input their personal details. This resulted in pushing the check out at the end of the process to mimic a retail experience.
In the agenda builder, users had questions regarding availability of courses and additional times they were offered. The filters originally offered did not adequately support how majority of users would search for sessions offered.
DEVELOP
Live Registration Site
After analyzing the data collected during the usability tests, we updated designs to produce and develop the final registration system.
Due to the complexity of the registration system and our users registering on a desktop >90%, we optimized for desktop displays only.
The final registration site included:
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Registration flow
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Check out/Payment processing
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User profiles
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Speaker bio pages
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Session detail pages
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Agenda builder
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Session Waitlisting
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Promotional add-ons
