The Fwdays website

https://fwdays.com/

Fwdays are IT conferences in Ukraine conducted for programmers, project managers, CEOs, CTOs and all specialists whose jobs are connected with IT. Since 2011, there have been 35 conferences, master-classes, and webinars. 7,000 participants have got the opportunity to listen to such speakers as Zeev Suraski, Derick Rethans, Jordi Boggiano and others.

The purpose of the Fwdays service is to inform the users about forthcoming events and to provide an opportunity to buy tickets online. We have developed the website and the corporate style of the organization since its foundation.

The Aim and the Tasks of the Project

Our major aim was to re-design the site totally: to refresh it visually and to add a mobile version. We also decided to make the ticket booking easier and faster by minimizing the number of clicks the users do.

So, we figured out the following tasks:

to modernize the visual style of the site;
to optimize the main page and the conference page;
to develop a mobile version of the site.

The Main Page

The major function of the main page is to provide a quick access to the relevant conferences. In the previous version, all relevant conferences were hidden in the slider. We relocated conferences outside from the slider and removed unpopular blocks: news, sponsor information, Twitter and Facebook widgets. Instead, we added sections with conferences photos and videos.

The Event Page

Different colors for different conference flows is a branding idea which has been sustained since the very first days of Fwdays. We decided to uphold this tradition on the event specification page, too: each conference has its color.

With the old design, all event information (speakers, program, ticket price, and meeting address) was hidden in tabs. But in the world of social networks, people are more used to scrolling than to clicking. That’s why we placed all the information about the event on one landing page.

The Program

We fixed the headlines so that users can always see the streams to which the reports belong. We also simplified the outlook of the program by leaving only the most important information: the start time and the title if the report and the speaker’s name.

Participation Fee

Purchase section, due to the redesign, has become more demonstrable. It is easier for the users to understand what ticket price is relevant at the moment and how many tickets at this price are left. Instead of the monotonous green-colored text with the obsolete price being trivially crossed, there is a table with more air and color. The «sold» label has been added, and the relevant price is highlighted by the different background shade. The «Buy now» button allows users to make a purchase quickly and comfortably.

The Mobile Version

The new site is easily adapted for any devices. Now users can read about conference talks sitting in a traffic jam or buy tickets while drinking coffee during the brunch. As a result, the number of visitors and the percentage of transactions from the mobile version has increased twice. The number of website sessions has increased by 23 % and session duration — by 26 %. The figures show that the site has become more convenient and user-friendly.

Project Outcome

The new website is compact, which makes event browsing and purchases faster. Thus, we help our target audience to save time. Now, neither the number of projects nor the deadlines are the obstacles for buying tickets for Fwdays conferences. And that means the IT sphere in Ukraine will develop even more intensively.