Appointedd

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I led the design lifecycle, from initial discovery to implementation for Appointedd’s new ticket generation and attendee check-in features. With unique QR-coded tickets, attendees can be quickly verified and checked in, helping to reduce wait times and keep event entry smooth and efficient.

• Business Value: We became a much bigger competitor and viable option to Eventbrite.
• Pilot Success: 37% of identified clients had adopted the functionality within the first month.¹
• Client adoption: Enterprise clients including Harrods, Liberty London and Victoria’s Secret had expressed eagerness of using the new features for all upcoming events.

The team

I led the design lifecycle, from initial discovery to implementation for Appointedd’s new ticket generation and attendee check-in features. With unique QR-coded tickets, attendees can be quickly verified and checked in, helping to reduce wait times and keep event entry smooth and efficient.

• design_servicesLead design: Me
• checklistProject Manager: Ruta Vareikaite
• codeLead Developer: Corey Magdziarz
• codeDevelopers: Jane Tatham & Emma Gray

Context & objective

Appointedd is an enterprise online booking and scheduling platform. In late 2023 Eventbrite removed the ability to host events for free. , which created a market gap. We wanted to capitalize on this shift by improving Appointedd’s core event functionality to capture enterprise clients looking to move.

The problem

For clients hosting events through Appointedd, checking in attendees relied on a couple of different methods:

Manual platform searches: To successfully log an attendee on Appointedd, organisers had to manually search the system for their name and change their status to 'arrived'. During busy events, they frequently skipped this step and just checked confirmation emails at the door, artificially inflating "no show" metrics and rendering the event data completely unreliable.

Printed sheets: Exported lists from Appointedd were printed and kept at the door. This was inefficient and, more importantly, a poor brand experience for clients like Harrods or Liberty London.

Project kick off

I led the project kick-off with the core project team, C-Suite, and Customer Success Managers (CSMs). CSMs often set up events on behalf of enterprise clients, their product knowledge was invaluable for helping us define initial requirements.

Aligning a new team

We started the project as a newly formed and fully remote team. This led to communication not being where it needed to be. It was my first project at Appointedd, and the lead developer’s first time leading on the dev side. To fix this, I facilitated a mini ways of working workshop to help set some expectations early on. We established a regular meeting cadence. These meetings included ticket refinements, open design feedback and daily check-ins.

Technical contrainsts & legacy code

Appointedd is built on quite a complex foundation of legacy code, which meant hooking in new scanning logic wasn't going to be straightforward. Whilst developers confirmed the technical feasibility of the designs, a huge worry was the possibility of hitting hurdles during the build. Given the communication loops established in the workshop, we were prepared for any rapid changes required without stalling the project entirely.

Analysing the competitors

I analysed the leading competitors in the sector including Eventbrite, AllEvents, Ticketmaster, Luma and many more. I also completed a SWOT analysis of each one and began to understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Speaking to the experts

We began speaking with clients who currently host events through Appointedd. I then held moderated user interviews with companies across retail, luxury, and finance including AND Agency, Society Matters, Holyrood Communications, White and Mackay, Harrods, Charlotte Tilbury, and others to map their workflows and frustrations. Their insights shaped a lot of the requirements:

• Clients wanted to verify attendee details manually rather than having the system check them in automatically.
• They needed to be able to log in to the Appointedd platform and start scanning immediately.
• Employees could use personal devices if needed to access the ticket scanner.

Researching ticket designs

I looked beyond the event space to rail and air travel for inspiration, borrowing established design patterns to ensure tickets felt familiar. To test legibility, I ran rapid mobile tests by emailing PDF prototypes to various devices, identifying any display issues before they moved to production.

Introducing digital ticket and scanning

Clients could now issue automatic tickets directly via Appointedd. With unique QR-coded tickets, attendees can be quickly verified and checked in, helping to reduce wait times and keep entry smooth and efficient.

When clients enable this feature for events, each attendee will automatically receive a PDF ticket containing a unique QR code attached to their confirmation email.

On the event day, clients can use the built in scanner in the Appointedd web app to scan each QR code and automatically check in attendees, marking them as "Arrived" in real time.

Timecode anxiety and local time

I maintained the platform's standard Europe/London (GMT) formatting for the digital tickets. This kept the ticket information consistent with confirmation emails. Those emails also feature an "Add to Calendar" integration which adds the event time to your device and handles the automatic local time conversion. This approach provided a static source of truth on the ticket without losing the convenience of local scheduling for attendees.

Strategic roadmap and scoping

Speed was of the utmost importance to capitalize on the Eventbrite market shift. By inserting this new functionality directly into the current event creation journey, we achieved a much shorter release timeline.

To ensure we were stayed on track for the launch date, I consciously deferred features like custom ticket design and digital wallet integration to Phase 2, trading 'nice to have' features for project quickness.