As the Director of Marketing for Falafel Software, EventBoard's creator, it is my job to make sure that EventBoard creates value for organizers and is intuitive and useful for attendees. There is just no other way to ensure these goals are being met than to witness the product in use first hand. No survey could reveal why people pick up the application and why people put it down. No focus group could truly show you the ever changing needs of the organizers. Without observing these conditions, there is just no way to make the product perfect.
EventBoard was used at five events in the past two weeks, and I was fortunate enough to be on the ground at three of them. Through attendee and organizer interviews as well as sheer observation, I learned a few things:
1. Attendees love the new feedback feature
It was a no brainer that conference organizers would love the new session feedback feature. No more session ratings to tally, no more waiting for results, and no more paper. What was surprising however, was how many people stopped by to tell me how much they liked being able to fill out the session surveys on their phone.
As it turns out, EventBoard actually changed people's behavior. In the typical scenario, paper surveys were issued before a session and a conference employee collected these surveys at the end of each session. We found that attendees were often in a rush to get to their next session, which may have been quite a trek from their current location. People often left early, and if a session ran late, you could forget about collecting any feedback at all. Enter EventBoard. There was no longer a rush to fill out the paper survey. Attendees were heading directly to their next session, grabbing an open seat, and comfortably filling out the feedback form on their phones while waiting for the next session to start.
To some, the feedback feature felt a little bit like magic. Users that had no internet connection were wondering if their voice was being heard at all. Like the rest of EventBoard, network activity only takes place when a network can be found. When submitting feedback with no internet connection, the data is stored on the device until a network becomes available. Once a connection is available, the data is automatically sent to the server. It was a pleasure proving to attendees that we were in fact collecting their data, even when they pressed “Submit” with no internet connection.
2. It would take a destructive act of nature to bring down our servers The servers that power EventBoard live in Microsoft's cloud. As a precautionary measure, we allocate extra processing power for every event. At one point, three major events (VS Live! Redmond, DevReach Bulgaria, and Microsoft Tech Days Switzerland) had overlapping usage periods. We were expecting to see an increase in server activity during this period, but there was no impact at all. This is as much of a testament to the infrastructure as it is to EventBoard's architecture. The data sent to the devices is quite small, and once a conference is loaded a cached version of data allows users to access the conference without any internet connection at all. The result? A highly scalable mobile solution that we are very proud of.
3. EventBoard can replace the conference program
During the planning stages for EventBoard, I collected conference programs from every event I attended. Friends and family were even bringing me programs from events they attended. I was constantly comparing what could be done on paper to what could be done electronically. After two weeks onsite with EventBoard, I realized I came home with no paper at all. I simply forgot to grab a program. The truth is, I never needed one and I don't even know if I was given one at any of the events. I used EventBoard for everything. I knew when I had to be at the conferences, when the social events would take place so I could prepare to talk to attendees, what sessions to attend, and even how to get to the right rooms with the EventBoard floor plans.
At Silicon Valley Code Camp, nearly our entire team was on hand and I don't recall any of them walking around with paper either. There was no rule that we had to “eat our own dog food”, we just found EventBoard to be more convenient. We wanted to use the product. In effect, we were “choosing to eat our own cake” and it was delicious.
4. As the creators of the product, we can respond to needs better than anyone Since a mobile conference companion is a new concept, the possibilities are not always fully understood. Being onsite during a conference is the only way to really understand the needs of the organizers and develop solutions. Building EventBoard in house allows us to build these solutions rapidly. Case in point: during VS Live Redmond the organizers wanted to make sure some important information was communicated to every attendee. As of that morning, push notifications were only sent automatically when a session had changed. By lunch time however, the ability for the organizers to send out custom on demand push notifications had been built into the EventBoard administration portal. The next morning, the feature was used to send a message to all attendees. I'd like to see another mobile application evolve that quickly.
5. We still make mistakes
So far this personal account of my experience with EventBoard has been very positive, and I am very proud to say that is a reflection of the response from virtually everyone I talked to. That doesn't mean everything was perfect, at least not yet. Although attendees loved using the new feedback feature, a handful of folks approached me asking how to use it. Questions like that make me cringe, because we want EventBoard to be completely intuitive. If anyone has to ask how to do something, we need to make a change.
In this particular case, a simple clarification is all that was needed. Feedback cannot be submitted until the session is over. This was confusing for people who left sessions early, or when sessions themselves ended early. This rule also does not fit well with day long workshops. Although communication can clear this up, we don't think this communication should be necessary, so relaxing the rules about when feedback can be submitted has become the most important change request for the next release. The importance of this small change would not have been recognized, had I not been there to witness it for myself.