Event App Redesign: This Is How You Can Make an Event App Remarkable

Olga Gierszal
Nov 5 · 5 min read

This September, we took part in an excellent conference in Cologne: DMEXCO (Digital Marketing Expo & Conference). The event was inspiring but its soft spot was a mobile app. Since our experience was far from excellent, and we had some ideas on how to improve it, we’ve decided to prepare a redesign concept for the DMEXCO mobile app.

From this article you will learn:

  • What users expect from an event app (and why almost every event should have an app nowadays);
  • What was wrong with DMEXCO app and how we solved all of these problems (all event app’s issues simply explained).

Mobile Event App Is a Must-Have

Atendees want to be able to check the timeline, personalize the agenda or use in-app maps to find what they’re looking for easily. What’s more, the apps are a powerful tool for networking.

Problems start when instead of being helpful, apps are confusing and not intuitive. That can seriously annoy users and leave a bad impression. And you don’t want that!

Mobile Event App: What Are Users Expectations?

For conference attendees, it is natural that a mobile app allows them to:

  • see the detailed event timeline and easy-to-view agenda, along with information about speakers;
  • filter presentations by languages if the event has a few tracks in different languages;
  • easily create personalized agendas;
  • check all the information about the event, including a hall or floor plans;
  • send direct messages or group messages to other attendees.
  • Important: the app needs to enable convenient networking. Many of the attendees came to the conference to make contacts.

And what about UI/UX design?

Mobile app users also want the design to make their lives easier, not to cause problems and frustrations. Interaction with the product should be comfortable and simple, with no unnecessary, distracting elements. Users expect clean design, clear language, easy navigation and no bugs. Otherwise, they simply won’t use the product.

DMEXCO Mobile App — What Went Wrong?

DMEXCO app — before our redesign. Source: DMEXCO

A few words about the app:

During the DMEXCO conference, the mobile app was needed to access the event (the ticket was available only through it). The product was developed to present the agenda, enable users to create personalized schedules and networking.

Each attendee was able to create his or her own networking profile and get in touch with other participants by sending direct messages. The app was also interactive: it allowed to scan the badge at the exhibitor’s stand, learn more about them, save the information and make an appointment.

Unfortunately, the app didn’t allow its users to exploit its full potential.

Its soft spots:

  • it was challenging to find information needed, because the app was overloaded with content;
  • User Interface wasn’t intuitive, it was easy to get lost in the app;
  • there was no possibility to filter the presentations by the language (appearences were in English and in German);
  • networking was made difficult, because there was no in-app chat (instead of sending direct messages in the app, users were redirected to send text messages).

The app was obligatory to use to enter the conference, but it failed in many purposes. It received negative rates in both Google Play and the Apple App Store.

DMEXCO Mobile App — Our Solutions and Redesign Concept

DMEXCO app — our redesign concept
  1. We listed all the essential app’s functionalities and created wireframes that depicted every screen needed. We kept it simple, so as not to overwhelm users, which was the previous version’s problem.
  2. The navigation between screens was fixed to make the UI more intuitive.
  3. Our designer took care of the visual side of the app. The old version was not so modern and mostly black and white. We added colours compatible with DMEXCO branding and made the app look light and contemporary.
  4. The messenger was designed to act in the app.
  5. We also improved the looks of a user’s profile and a login screen.
  6. We made it easier to search among attendees and look at their profiles.
  7. The schedule was simplified, made more transparent and easy-to-use; we also added a possibility to filter the appearances by language.

These changes allowed us to solve the problems the DMEXCO app had. Putting our proposition and solutions into effect, DMEXCO app could regain its powers and become helpful again.

Check out the visual results of our redesign project at Behance and scroll here for more visuals:


Need a team to redesign your mobile app? You’re in the right place! At Appstronauts, we can make your app intuitive, user-friendly and engaging. Just send us a short description of your problem at hello@appstronauts.co or fulfill this short form to estimate your project.


Appstronauts

We build outstanding web and mobile apps to help you turn your vision into a market-winning product.

Olga Gierszal

Written by

Content Marketing Specialist at Appstronauts

Appstronauts

We build outstanding web and mobile apps to help you turn your vision into a market-winning product.

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