Impact

Business Context

Events.com's platform handled ticketing and registration, but check-in, the moment attendees actually arrive, was still painful. Long lines, stressed staff, and day-of volunteers with minimal training created a poor first impression for every event the platform powered.

A first-party check-in app extended Events.com's value from pre-event to day-of, and created a new competitive moat against point-solution check-in tools.

The Problem

Existing tools required too much setup and had too steep a learning curve for temporary event-day volunteers. At 8am on event morning, there's no time for onboarding. The app needed to be immediately usable by someone who'd never seen it before, under pressure.

Research

I interviewed staff at 5 event organizations across categories: music festivals, marathons, corporate conferences. I also conducted on-site trials at live events and led QA/UAT to test the app in real conditions, not just usability labs.

Key insight: volunteers didn't want features. They wanted confidence. The app needed to make the right action obvious at every step.

Key Design Decision: Cut the Attendee Flow

The initial prototype was designed for two user types: organizers/volunteers and attendees. Testing revealed the attendee-facing functionality was redundant. Attendees wanted to be checked in quickly, not interact with an app themselves.

I cut the screen count in half by removing the attendee flow entirely. This is a case where the right answer was doing less, and research made that clear rather than gut instinct.

I ran a second round of validation testing after the cut to confirm the simplified experience was faster and less error-prone under simulated event conditions.

Outcomes & Impact

• —Launched on the Google Play Store and adopted across Events.com's customer base
• —Featured in TechCrunch as a noteworthy event technology product
• —Post-launch iterations added in-app statistics so organizers could track check-in performance in real time
• —Volunteer onboarding guides added to the app, reducing the training burden before event day