The Early Childhood Conference is an annual event highly anticipated by Early Childhood Educators in Singapore. But year after year, they faced a barrier to participate. How can we help to ease the registration process for a conference with limited slots?
ROLEInteraction Design
Research
Prototyping
PRODUCTEvent Registration Portal
YEAR2019
The beginning of every event starts from registration. From a study made by Aventri, managing attendee registration is one of the top pre-event pain points. A smooth and efficient registration process is the key to a positive first impression.
#1 - Understanding Business Goals
Originally a standalone microsite, the registration portal for this year's conference was decided to be integrated with the Agency's main transactional system as as part of the effort to create a single universal platform for all interactions and services with Preschool Operators.
We identified many potential areas for improvement from an initial assessment of the current microsite. However, we sensed resistance in making improvements to the registration process from our engagement with the Business Team. The following is the core of their intention.
The Team is concern about opening registration on time and therefore wish to directly duplicate microsite directly to the new portal. Keeping in mind the limited time frame, we planned and proposed a quick research stint.
#2 - Discovering User Needs & Problems
Together with the Business Team, we went down to various Preschools to interview Centre Principals whom we have identified as potential end users. Beside registering for themselves, Principals might also register for their staff (Teachers).
Conducted interviews with Principals in their offices
Some interviews are conducted in children's activity room as their office spaces are small
The Principals shared their experience with the event, from awareness, to registration, to attending the event. We wanted to focus on finding out their motivation, behaviour and satisfaction throughout the entire event journey. Below are some key general event-related questions asked.
We also conducted usability testing on last year's registration microsite with a invision prototype (as the site is no longer active). This helps to trigger users' memory on their registration experience and also act as a good basis for discovering pain points.
Prototype of last year's registration microsite created from invision - View prototype
Users' working environment is often not ideal for "ticket battles".
Testing on-site provided some crucial environmental context. Centre Principals are usually either on-the-go or based in their respective Preschools. Office spaces are usually in close proximity to children's activity areas. This can potentially further increase their stress level when registering for the conference.
This further emphasize on the importance for a smooth and efficient registration process!
#3 - Synthesizing our findings
By mapping out the registration journey, we helped Business to better visualise the potential areas that need improvements. The red negative touchpoints reflect the frictions encountered by the Centre Principals when registering for the conference.
A typical Principal who registers for herself
We grouped our key findings (frictions, behaviour, needs) into 3 phases: Pre-registration, Registration and Post-registration. This help us to draw our focus on areas where most users face difficulties with.
Affinity map for synthesis & prioritisation
Through our analysis, we identified 4 correlated key factors that impact the registration experience.
The vicious cycle resulting from the correlated factors
So the main question is...
We wanted to focus on designing a friction-free registration experience, to minimise any uncertainty (in getting a seat for a desired workshop) that results from process or system flaws.
#4 - Solutioning
Problem #1
Implication: As Principals are usually on-the-go, it might be too late to register for their desired workshop by the time they get to register on their desktop PC.
Programme details are not optimised for viewing on mobile
Programme and workshop details are only avaliable as a downloadable PDF document, which is overwhelmingly wordy and packed with unecessary details.
The registration form is also not designed for mobile experience. Most users printed out the programme as it is difficult to refer to the programme in seperate page while registering on their devices.
Solution #1
Programme Outline
Workshop Information
Registration Step 3 - Workshop Selection
Problem #2
Implication: Users only realised certain information is required after starting registration. It is impossible for Principals registering for multiple participants to collect the necessary information within the time limit imposed during registration.
Users tend to ignore the pre-registration instructions
Users would rather not do something that takes time and effort, like reading lengthy instructions. Repeated users assume they already know what they need to know. Even for first-time users, most would assume things can be figured out as they go along. However, the instructions do contain crucial new information (eg. new payment method) that would require attention before filling in the form.
Despite reading through, the overwhelming presentation of the information makes it likely for users to miss out certain information.
Solution #2
Pre-registration Instructions
Helper text
Problem #3
Implication: User are logged out of the system when time's up. User will need to start the registration all over again D:
The countdown timer visible throughout the registration process
Principals often need to key in large amount of information when registering for multiple Teachers. The unrealistic time limit is not only insufficient, but also impose unecessary pressure on users when registering.
Solution #3
Save
Time-out alert after 20 minutes of inactivity
Problem #4
Implication: User are forced to attend other workshops that are not of their interest. The event managers also receive email requests for workshop selection changes, increasing operational costs.
Educators wanted to gain knowledge to expand curriculum and pedagogical possibilities. Not being able to attend their choice of workshop makes the whole event experience meaningless.
Solution #4
Changing of registation details
#5 - Validating the designs
We went through rounds and rounds of usability testing sessions with Centre Principals, focusing on testing whether the registration flow is intuitive, whether information are understandable and whether users are more assured before, during and after registration.
We grouped the areas for improvement according to the feature or functionality, checking them off as we test and iterate.
#6 - Feedback & Results
User Impact
Users find that there is a significant reduction in hassle to register and that information are readable and understandable.
Business Impact
What can we do better
A major part of the stress lies in the lack of reaction time as programme details are only released when registration opens. It is difficult for Principals to collect participant information and make rostering plans for operations.
I advocated for an early release of programme information, but was faced with resistance due to its implication from other event organising teams. Learning from our research, we hope that organisers will be better prepared to plan for an earlier release of information in the next round.
Educators are eligible for training hours after attending the conference. However, our research reflects that conference attendees often did not receive the training hours due to the lack of evidence and difficulties with the Educator Portal (another system owned by our client).
We hope to relook into the Educator Portal and interface possibilities to explore ways to reflect an accurate record of the training hours, eliminating the need for users to manually submit attendance records.
I mentioned about the business and user impact above. However, what I felt most accomplished was how we gained trust from the business team. I involved the Business Team as much as possible in user engagement sessions. After each session, we had quick debriefs to discuss our key findings and draw early conclusions and recommended next actions.
Through listening to the Principals pain points first hand, and observing the frustration they encounter when registering for the conference on the old microsite, the Business Team had a better understanding on the need to relive the Principals of these unecessary headaches. This helped increase the acceptance level on our recommendations and foster a user-centric mindset.
PS: The Business Team used our finding synthesis in their updates to their management :)
How can we reduce complexity and effort in the claim process?
