Exposed is a NYC-based 3-day conference focused on health, wellness, and environmental/social impact. The event is hosted by our client, SMPLCT Lab.
I acted as a Research Lead within a team of 5 UX Designers and 4 Developers in the timeframe of a 4-week design sprint.
How might we create a comprehensible site experience that emphasizes user-focused features for conference site users, measured by an increase in ticket sales?
We were tasked with designing and developing a responsive website for desktop and mobile devices for the Exposed 2017 conference.
After speaking with the SMPLCT Lab CEO, CTO, Partnerships Strategist, and Exposed Co-founder, we learned:
To expose the truth around food, nutrition, and the impact of what we consume has on our lives (mental/physical), and how that relates to society.
Through Competitive Analysis (pictured right), we found 2:8 sites utilized video heros.
Through usability testing, we found that users spent significantly more time on the hero than the rest of the website. Utilizing a hero image allowed us to showcase the lesser-known brand as soon as the user landed on the site to grab attention, thus decreasing the bounce rate.
According to Nielsen Nelson Group, a continuous scroll is effective when content has a flat hierarchy. Based on business needs (sponsors on main page, location highlights) and varying user needs (location, speakers, agenda, price), the many site sections all carried similar weight, warranting a flat hierarchy. We also choose a sticky navigation to ensure the user had ready access to all the sections.
To find users to interview, we sent out a short survey targeting primary (attendees) and secondary (speakers) users interested in health, wellness, and/or social impact.
Using our synthesized research results, we created two personas to guide our designs going forward.