ConnectworX was an all-in-one digital events platform for enterprise-level conferences and networking experiences.
I spent a year designing, building, and improving the ConnectworX platform during my time at BrainXchange. I was the sole designer and product owner throughout the project and was responsible for research, architecture, flows, wireframes, and making product decisions with our stakeholders.
Check out the case study below to discover how my product and design work contributed to a 33% increase in company-wide revenue and brought a piece of software from a casual conversation to an enterprise-level product used by Fortune 500's.
ConnectworX was born at the start of the pandemic out of necessity. When a country-wide ban on social gatherings removed our primary revenue source, in-person conferences, we set out to create the most lifelike digital event experience on the market.
We set out to show the world a web-based conference experience which would really listen to and solve problems for attendees, speakers, and sponsors.
Interesting Note: The platform was originally planned as an internal tool but we opted to offer it as a service when our partners began asking about running their own events!
While digital events platforms have existed for nearly a decade, most (at the time of writing) struggle to get audience members to engage with one another and with event sponsors.
Lackluster networking experiences often leave attendees checked out and event sponsors with a lack of meaningful connections. Additionally, these platforms are very cookie cutter in their organization, and often require A/V teams to manage complex and expensive streaming solutions.
Check out our findings when evaluating the competition:
Competitor platforms are simply integrating Vimeo Live, Zoom, or YouTube Live to stream live sessions. 3rd party apps requires additional fees, a separate technical support contact, and may present security risks.
Trying to herd worldwide attendees into an event-planned schedule is going to disappoint. Users are much more comfortable with casual, social-based communication tools (like LinkedIn) to conversate at their own pace.
Competitor platforms take the idea of a conference too literally, spending energy on replicating a 3D space with avatars, booths, and cheesy graphics.
Build a product that enables conference companies to host engaging digital events and provide value to both sponsors and attendees.
The product should be:
Administrators: Conference organizers who want (or need) to host digital events during the pandemic. They may be looking to run a series of small events for 500 attendees or one big event with over 10,000. Event organizers will have variable experience with running digital events and it may be their first time doing so.
End Users: Attendees, event speakers, and sponsors who love the in-person experience of a conference. Each of these user groups has different needs during an event. Their location, age, and ability to use technical products will vary in a big way.
Check out possible personas for ConnectworX users below:
During the COVID era, most offices are closed and many companies are going remote. ConnectworX users will likely be attending virtual events from home or a co-working space. Users will need access to a device with an internet connection, webcam, and audio in/output.
We anticipate the use of desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices running iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. Device types and operating systems will vary across events.
Considerations & Restrictions of Use:
Check out our research and planning in accounting for when, where, how, and by whom ConnectworX might be used:
ConnectworX will function most effectively as a web application to begin with. We considered building a dedicated mobile or desktop app, but ultimately landed on a web app because:
ConnectworX is made up of two components for two different user types: An engaging and familiar event platform for conference attendees and a flexible, editable CMS for conference organizers:
ConnectworX (Front-facing event platform)
The frontend of ConnectworX will be the visual output of the Studio, where an event takes place. Invited attendees, speakers, sponsors, and press will interact here. Changes to the frontend can be made by admins in real-time using the Studio.
ConnectworX Studio (Event organizer control center)
The studio will serve as the backend; an editable CMS for administrators to customize their pages, forms, user access levels, and overall design. Admins can also view event metrics and moderate social activity from the Studio. The studio is only available to admins who purchase a license for ConnectworX.
Check out how we planned out view/edit access for various user groups within the platform:
A key stakeholder ask was for the ConnectworX experience to mirror that of an in-person conference. Digital attendees will be able to engage in the following activities:
The diverse range of activities available to attendees requires for a particularly well organized information architecture. There are 3 separate site menus including:
Below you can see the information architecture for different attendee types:
Work sample below: Information architecture for the web app frontend. Note the 3 separate menus for different event use cases as well as additional nav visibility in blue and green for different user roles.
ConnectworX is where a live event takes place and is made up of three primary pillars of information:
The ConnectworX profile is the networking home for event attendees. Users can interact with one another in the following ways:
Work sample below: Finalized designs for ConnectworX's user profiles including a fully filled out user profile (top left), a user's exportable connections from the event (top middle), A user's personalized event agenda (right), the Digital Briefcase features (bottom left), and a user's calendar of scheduled in-platform meetings with other users (bottom right)
Our research indicated that digital event attendees are likely to be interested in some but not all of a conference, and will want to watch content at their own pace.
We designed the agenda to be fully customizable, where each user can add, remove, and get notified about sessions to build their own conference experience.
The live session rooms have a dedicated chat, Q&A with upvoting capability, and a space to download any supporting documents. We also designed a picture-in-picture viewing option for watching live sessions for those who will undoubtably be multitasking.
Work sample below: Finalized designs for the conference agenda and filter/search capabilities (left) and an example of a live session and Q&A screen from an attendee's point of view (right)
Happy exhibitors are key to a successful and profitable event experience, and achieving this is as simple as creating space for healthy interactions between them and attendees.
We built the ConnectworX exhibitor booth as a funnel for qualifying and gathering leads.
Booth staff can search attendee profiles for tag or keyword matches and then invite them to attendlive demos at their booth. Following the demo, the staff can then exchange virtual business cards with those who attend.
We also built a dedicated analytics dashboard for exhibitors so they could view who came to their booth on a given day and what they interacted with.
Work sample below: Finalized designs for the Sponsor/Exhibitor booths including a live booth demo (top left), an example of a user exchanging virtual business cards with booth staff (top right), A slide-out video window that contains a pre-recorded demo from the exhibitor (bottom left), and the robust exhibitor page analytics available to each exhibitor team (bottom right).
The Studio is a flexible CMS for event organizers to build their event. It offers drag and drop widgets for easy page creation, customizable user roles, and dedicated live speaker/stage management tool.
Note: Limited wireframes are shown for the Studio below. A full, guided tour of the Studio can be viewed here.
Managing a live event can be a stressful experience whether digital or in-person. We designed the Studio experience to be flexible and full of customization pre-event, but a very simple experience once things went live.
The "Streams" page (seen below) allows for switching between commercials, moderator introductions, and live speaking sessions. Organizers can see all possible video inputs on one screen and simply click a "Go Live" button on the stream that should be playing to users.
This opened up a multi-stage, enterprise-level conference experience which could be run by a relatively small team.
Work sample below: The "Streams" control center where organizers can control what is currently broadcasting live to each stage (left). To the right you'll see a diagram I created to help our devs understand how the Studio handles user authentication and the transition between each speaking session.
ConnectworX was an incredible race to create a product which could help people stay connected digitally during The Pandemic era.
The MVP was finished in just 10 months thanks to long nights and early mornings from our team, and was being used by our first enterprise customer by month 13.
I was especially proud of the work my team and I did on version 2 of the software. We were able to collect a wealth of feedback from event organizers and attendees in real time. These improvements, coupled with a more robust infrastructure, allowed us to court much larger clients.
V2 saw a whopping 2,150.00% increase in average users per event instance and drew a revenue increase of 33%.
Notable speakers on events powered by ConnectworX V2 include:
Notable companies involved with events powered by ConnectworX include:
