Impact

Business Context

Events.com scaled from $0 to $100M in revenue during my tenure, and self-service user growth was a core part of that trajectory. But new self-service organizers were dropping off during setup, creating support burden and leaving revenue on the table from events that never launched.

Improving the first-hour experience for new organizers was directly tied to activation rate and downstream revenue.

The Problem

After creating an event, users were automatically sent to the event edit page, a dense interface with no guidance on what to do next. New users had no way to distinguish required setup from optional configuration, and no sense of progress or completion.

The result: drop-off during setup, a spike in support tickets, and organizers launching incomplete events that performed poorly.

Research

I conducted user testing with 10 new organizers, observing where they got stuck and what decisions they couldn't make without guidance. Key insight: users didn't need more information. They needed a clear sequence and a sense of what "done" looked like.

Design Solution

The Event Home Page replaced the edit-first experience with a checklist-based hub. Each task appeared as an interactive widget with three states, keeping the mental model simple and progress visible.

A live dashboard panel alongside the checklist showed days until the event, ticketing launch date, and tickets sold, giving experienced organizers the at-a-glance snapshot they needed without overwhelming new users.

Outcomes & Impact

• —Second-round testing showed significantly higher engagement with the widget layout than the previous side navigation
• —New users successfully completed full event setup without support intervention
• —Experienced organizers adopted the dashboard as a go-to monitoring view
• —Reduced support ticket volume related to new user setup confusion