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Reccomendations

Project 1: Participant to Participant 

A bit of background, Reeds Exhibitions host different types of shows, such as networking events where no products are displayed but instead people get together to look for opportunities and offer their services like the MIPIM (Le marché international des Professionnels de l’immobilier) event. There all users are considered 'Participants'. Exhibitors to Visitor events are the most known ones, where Exhibitors come and promote their products to exhibitors. Pop shows are mainly for people to have fun such as Comicon.

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User: Visitor and Profile owner

Requirement 1: The French team sees the need to enable recommendations for Participants to Participants as this will improve the experience and enable users to connect and prepare for the show.

Requirement 2: Enable those participants to update the recommendation's options on their profile.

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The process

Discovery

Prototyping

Feedback loop

Development

Discovery

Discovery 

At this stage, I began by looking at what information was collected so far regarding: the main requirements, any research done, the users and business needs, and the deadline.

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The challenges

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  • Picking up from another colleague can always be a challenge if a handover is not clear and material is all over the place. 

  • Tight deadline 

  • No team structure 

  • No UX Lead

  • Disagreement on final results

  • ​Given the structure of the site, there are lots of technical constraints such as data flow dependency from system to system.

  • Too many systems talking to each other

  • Time zone

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Basically a challenge within a challenge, how do we call this? So first things first, maintain a positive attitude and an open mindset, keep transparent and do not point fingers, enjoy all that is happening, observe and learn, I am here because I have a problem to solve, do my best to be close to the team.

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The Opportunities

 

  • There was quite a good research material that gave me background and direction such as users details needed 

  • There was design material

  • A test was done and improvements to be further made

  • lots of knowledge from the team members

  • Lots of willingness to help when needed

  • Great people

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With all the information above, I began to align myself with the other UXers to understand the impact of this work on their teams. I also looked at designs made and feedback collected and try to get as much information from the PO of course.

User journey
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As business requirements, recommendations are to be displayed on the Participant's directory list. Access to this area is restricted and only participants that have paid will be able to log in and view all the participant's details and connect. This makes it a very simple journey. In this project, just to clarify I didn't have to build a login solution for this project.

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Prototyping
Prototyping
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When looking at the design material, I was very confused about the UI as it was quite different compared to the site, but I could not figure out why as it was a handover. The PO was not happy about it either so it was decided to start all over again. Despite all this, I could not find the original file all the design patterns started from. this was really frustrating as I could not find direction and time was reducing on my side.
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After talking to one colleague he suddenly remembered there was an old file I could take a look. Yes, this is where all the design styles started.
 
This was a point of clarity, then I began to produce the designs and align with the visuals, to ensure consistency across the site. Keeping the team in a feedback loop was crucial until I got it right. 
Design & Feedback
Design decisions and feedback
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Position
- As we would like users (Participants) to connect and build relationships, its important recommendations are clear and easy to find, therefore making them obvious is important I used the fold in this project, this would help us understand user's needs, interactions, and the activity of this component.  Unlike other recommendations, they have all been across most pages but located at the end close to the footer. 
Feedback
When presented to both stakeholders and users they were positive about the position of the component being on the top of the page, as users can acknowledge the recommendations, understand there is an opportunity and focus on relevant participants. 
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Balance 
- Minimal yet crucial details were provided for users to engage and continue looking at the recommended profiles, clear interaction
- Ensure the Recommendations don't look like an advertisement
Feedback 
People felt it was important to have just the relevant information about a profile recommendation and to ensure it was not an advertisement.
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Information Architecture 
- Provide clear information structure
- Tags to display and highlight the connection
Feedback
Less information is good but it is important to provide what is key to help the user get engage and continue exploring further. 
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Development
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Once the project has been completed and approved the team starts the Sprint planning ceremony for development. live sample 
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