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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.
- We became a much bigger competitor and viable option to Eventbrite.
- 37% of our target high-volume event clients, including Harrods and Charlotte Tilbury, adopted ticketing within the first month.1
- Enterprise clients including Harrods, Liberty London and Victoria's Secret had expressed eagerness of using the new features for all upcoming events.
The team
- Lead design: Me
- Project Manager: Ruta Vareikaite
- Lead Developer: Corey Magdziarz
- Developers: Jane Tatham & Emma Gray
Market Opportunity
Capitalising on the Eventbrite shift
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 capitalise on this shift by improving Appointedd's core event functionality to capture enterprise clients looking to move.
Operational Friction
Why manual tracking led to bad event data
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.
Market Research
Finding our sweet spot between enterprise and lightweight tools
I analysed the leading competitors in the sector including Eventbrite, AllEvents, Ticketmaster, Luma and many more. We aimed for Luma’s simplicity with the reliability enterprise clients expect from bigger platforms like Eventbrite.
User Discovery
Testing my hardware assumptions through client interviews
I ran moderated interviews with event teams across retail, luxury and finance, including AND Agency and Victoria Secret.
Two points came out clearly. First, zero onboarding was non-negotiable. Whoever was on the door for an event had to be able to scan without training. Second, I’d assumed staff would scan on store laptops, since most retail teams have them. I learnt the person on the door could be anyone and using whatever device was to hand, often their own phone.
It was designed mobile first using the phone’s camera as the scanner, and no setup beyond logging in.
Interaction Design
Borrowing familiar mental models from travel tickets
I've always found that tickets designed for printing are a disaster on mobile. You're usually required to awkwardly zoom in on a PDF ticket just to get the QR code big enough for the scanner.
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.
Release Strategy
Slotting functionality into the live product to ship faster
Rather than wait for the wider events overhaul, we added ticketing to the current event creation flow. This consisted of a toggle to turn tickets on for an event, and a link in the menu to open the scanner. This got it out to users months earlier.
The downside was that Appointedd is a legacy platform, and the rest of the app wasn’t mobile responsive. The scanner itself worked well on a phone, but organisers had to zoom in to reach the menu link to it. Improving the platforms responsiveness was a much bigger job than this release, but the scanner was one of the first features built mobile-first.
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.
Product Resilience
Designing actionable feedback for stressful door environments
In a perfect world, every attendee would arrive on time with a valid ticket. In reality event staff deal with network issues, duplicate ticket scans, and guests arriving long after the event has started. We had to ensure this tool could handle all of those eventualities.
Instead of creating generic error states, I focused on providing actionable feedback so staff could resolve issues quickly.
The scanner would also highlight when an attendee is late. This gave the event runner the final say on whether to refuse entry or let them in, making sure they actually understood the situation before hitting confirm.
Detail & Craft
Eliminating traveller confusion with device calendar syncs
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 to your device calendar 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.
Product Scoping
Deferring nice-to-haves to secure the launch date
As a team, we moved Apple and Google Wallet support and ticket customisation (brand colours and logos) to Phase 2 to ensure we met the launch date.
Afterword
I left before Phase 2 shipped but the ticketing release is still live and in use today.
Retrospective
What I'd have done differently
One thing that would have really benefitted the scanner is a context-based prompt. A simple toast or timed modal that surfaced when an event was live, with a quick button taking you straight to it.
I also think we should have pushed harder for Apple and Google Wallet in the first release. For most customers buying tickets on mobile it's probably an expected feature, not a nice to have.