SFScon app
At-A-Glance
I was one of two UX/UI designer leading the design process to make a tablet and a mobile app for a South Tyrol Free Software Conference, SFScon. In the months leading to the SFS Conference, which was held on the 11th and 12th of November 2022, we delivered a complete set of design for both the scan tablet app (used by the conference staff) and the conference mobile app (used by the conference attendees), created a design system, worked hand in hand with the development team and project managers to make sure the apps would be ready on time and without any major bugs.
Timeline
March - November 2022
Platform
Figma
My role
UX/UI Designer
Collaboration
1 Designer
2 PMs
1 Team of SWEs
Problem
The South Tyrol Free Software Conference, SFSCON, is one of Europe’s most established annual conferences on Free Software, organised annually at the NOI Techpark in Bolzano. Its organisers needed an innovative and competitive mobile app which would give its users access to the conference schedule with all the tracks, lectures, topics, speakers, locations, as well as offer them the possibility to highlight the lectures they will attend and bookmark their favourites. They also asked for help in creating a scan tablet app, which would assist their staff in scanning the attendees’ QR codes on different posts and track the conference attendance.
Solution
My fellow designer and I designed a conference mobile app for both guest users (limited view) and registered ones (unlimited view) called “SFScon” where online and offline attendees can easily access all the information regarding lectures and speakers of this two-day hybrid event. All users have been offered the possibility to not only create their own schedule with lectures they plan to attend/listen to, and therefore organise their time more intelligently, but also ask a speaker a question privately through the app. A scan app has also been designed and developed to fit the needs of NOI Techpark’s staff and easily track the number of people present in each conference room. The app is currently available for download on Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Process
App architecture
Assets
Email template design
In order to facilitate the registration process, we have reduced the complexity of it by requiring less personal information from the user and made it more flexible by offering the user an option to register with their Google, Facebook or GitHub account. Depending on whether the system recognises the user phone number/email address or not, this screen will be replaced with the screen requiring password (user has been found in the database) or the screen asking for the verification code sent to the user’s phone number/email address (user has not been found in the database), in which way the registration/log in process will be significantly simplified.
Design iterations
Following a long discussion about whether to treat all QR codes regarding entrance, lunch and coffee separately or create one QR code that will contain all the information, we have opted for the second option because of its better user experience.
The app’s home screen containing conference schedule has gone through several iterations as the event managers asked us to adapt the visuals, redefine the colours, reduce the amount of information presented, improve the filtering options and, essentially, make the user experience smoother with a more unified design.
In order to create an easy-to-use scan tablet app which would help the conference staff quickly and efficiently scan the attendees’ QR codes, we needed to minimise its complexity by marking the visual cues easily understandable and by presenting its users with only the most essential information.
The “Set up attendee’s account” modal is another example of how a simplified user interface without any visual distraction and a clear hierarchy of elements can speed up the process where effective time management is of the utmost importance.
Additional features
The app offers their registered users a possibility to ask the speaker a question to which they can choose to respond during their lecture. We proposed this interactive solution to the conference managers as a nice-to-have additional feature which would help the offline attendees who do not enjoy speaking publicly raise important questions and would stimulate the online attendees to participate more actively. This proposal secured us at least another year of maintaining and upgrading the SFScon app with new features, which is hopefully only a beginning of a long-term business arrangement, with many new projects waiting to be carried out.
Product successes
In the user interviews our team conducted during the SFS Conference, the vast majority of respondents stated to have really enjoyed the new app’s features, especially the possibilities it offers to connect with like-minded individuals, create your own schedule for the lectures you are interested in attending, and revisit and share the lectures after the conference finishes. In addition, 90% of respondents who are recurring attendees responded affirmatively when asked if the new app has helped them organise their conference attendance better.
What I learned
Throughout my time working on the SFScon app project, I’ve learned how much integrating the development team early and at every stage of the design process makes the time management more efficient and the app delivery an effective one. I’ve improved the communication with my developer colleagues by taking their remarks into account and structuring my work on Figma in a way more accessible to them, which implied attentively describing Figma frames and leaving comments where additional changes have been made.