Whova offers a full suite of tools to help organizers manage events from start to finish—including registration, agenda planning, attendee check-in, and more.
Yet among all the features we provided, our registration tool was under-adopted: only 32% of events ran their ticket sales through Whova. Many organizers actively used other Whova features but continued relying on their customer management systems or third-party platforms to manage registration. To understand why, we conducted user interviews, gathered insights from sales and support teams, and analyzed product usage data. A few key patterns stood out:
Awareness
Many organizers weren’t aware of the benefits of using Whova Registration.
Limited usability and flexibility
Existing features didn’t fully support end-to-end workflows.
Feature gaps
Some critical capabilities simply didn’t exist yet to meet organizers' need.
As a Senior Product Designer at Whova, I led the design of 15+ registration-related features across onboarding, attendee and exhibitor management, payments, and analytics — improving usability, closing functional gaps, and driving registration adoption to its all-time high.
Beyond Project Work
In addition to leading product initiatives, I also took on a co-manager role for the design team.
Together with another senior designer, I helped with hiring and mentoring new teammates and made sure everyone had the support they needed to grow. I led design reviews for all projects and set up clearer processes around research and acceptance criteria so that our team could move faster with more alignment. I also contributed to maintaining and scaling our design system as the product evolved.
The following highlights some of the most impactful projects I worked on at Whova. There were many other experiments and iterations that contributed to the overall growth of Whova registration and the broader platform — I’d be happy to share more details if you’re interested.
Before
After
CHALLENGE
While 92% of events using Whova visited the Registration tab, only about 38% created event tickets and sold through Whova. Research showed that among the 46% who dropped off, one of the main reasons was a lack of awareness and guidance — organizers weren’t fully aware of the benefits of Whova Registration or felt overwhelmed by the number of features and unsure where to start.
BUSINESS NEED
Increase awareness of Whova Registration’s benefits, help organizers discover key features, and encourage adoption from their first visit.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
After reviewing 15+ user sessions, I noticed that the inline banner on the ticket setup page was rarely interacted with—users’ cursors almost never hovered over it. It also took up valuable space of the ticket creation page while being easy to miss.
I proposed replacing it with a first-time onboarding modal that clearly introduces pricing, benefits, and key features. Since modals only capture a few seconds of attention, I focused on surfacing what would instantly convey the value of Whova Registration. I worked with the PM and sales team to prioritize content based on proven lead-conversion strategies, such as highlighting pricing upfront and featuring customer testimonials, and added a clear link to the step-by-step guide that had previously been buried in the interface.
RESULTS
60%+ of first-time users completed the onboarding modal without closing out early.
Visits to the step-by-step guide and advanced registration features increased noticeably.
Average session time on registration setup pages increased, indicating deeper exploration and stronger intent to adopt.
CHALLENGE
The existing attendee and event performance data were scattered across different parts of the dashboard, forcing organizers to export multiple reports and manually piece together a full picture. For recurring organizers, the challenge was even greater — comparing results across multiple events meant spending hours merging spreadsheets to track trends year over year.
BUSINESS NEED
Present organizers centralized, easy-to-access insights that help them understand attendee behavior and evaluate event performance — reducing manual reporting while reinforcing Whova’s value and encouraging long-term customer retention.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
I led the design of two analytics features that connected event insights with long-term growth tracking:
Attendee Analytics — A centralized dashboard that visualizes attendee demographics, engagement, and registration insights for a single event, helping organizers monitor performance and make data-driven decisions.
Cross-Event Report — A consolidated view to compare results across events, track trends in attendance and engagement, and export graphs or reports for team planning.
PERSONAL CHALLENGE
One of the toughest parts of this project was working within the limits of our existing framework while trying to show meaningful insights without overwhelming users. I wanted the dashboard to feel informative at a glance but still approachable.
To get there, I partnered with my PM to run user interviews and gathered product data to identify the metrics organizers cared about most. From there, I refined the layout through multiple iterations to balance density and clarity, and worked closely with engineers to make sure the data and visualizations were both accurate and feasible.
RESULTS
Reduced reporting time by ~60% by consolidating fragmented exports.
37%+ of recurring organizers used the new features to evaluate event performance within the first quarter of launch.
Strengthened Whova’s positioning as a data-driven event management platform, directly contributing to customer retention and renewals.
Scroll to view full design 👇
PAYMENT & ORDER TRACKING
CHALLENGE
Exhibitor registration fees are often large, and many exhibitors are hesitant to put such bulk payments on personal or company credit cards. Without an in-platform offline payment tracking, organizers had to log payments manually in spreadsheets and follow up with exhibitors through back-and-forth emails.
Survey data confirmed the demand:
Out of 157 events with exhibitors, 53% of them used methods other than Whova’s registration to process exhibitor registration.
Of these, 15.5% cited lack of offline payment methods as a reason for not choosing Whova.
BUSINESS NEED
Help organizers track exhibitor registrations that require offline payments directly within Whova — addressing user needs while strengthening retention by keeping all payment management in one place.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
I designed the offline payment setup and order tracking experience within exhibitor registration, enabling organizers to manage all offline and online payments in one place.
For exhibitors, I added the option to skip credit card entry and select “offline payment” to complete their registration more easily.
RESULTS
$XX,XXX revenue generated from EXhibitor Offline Payment add-on purchase
For confidentiality reasons, I’ve omitted the actual revenue figures for this feature.
Support tickets asking about offline payment options dropped
CHALLENGE
Whova Registration didn’t support booth selection at the time. Organizers had to email exhibitors to collect their preferences, track selections in spreadsheets, and manually assign spaces — a slow and error-prone process that created unnecessary back-and-forth.
BUSINESS NEED
Offer a self-service booth selection feature to close the gap with competitors and improve user retention by giving organizers and exhibitors a more efficient, transparent registration experience.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
I led the competitor analysis, design, and feature prioritization for the first milestone, working with the PM to define core requirements and align stakeholders at each stage. As Whova’s first map-based feature, I worked closely with PM and engineers over the course of 4 months—initiating regular discussions to ensure the design was feasible, scalable, and technically sound.
The result was a tool that lets organizers create an interactive booth map where exhibitors can view available booths and select their preferred space in real time during registration.
RESULTS
Saved organizers ~40% of booth assignment time.
Highly adopted by events with exhibitors within months of launch.
CHALLENGE
~40% of people who start registering for an event never finish — yet many organizers weren’t even aware of these potential attendees. This drop-off directly impacts event revenue and makes it difficult for organizers to measure the effectiveness of their outreach. Without visibility into who abandoned registration, they had no practical way to follow up or recover those lost ticket sales.
BUSINESS NEED
Help organizers identify and re-engage potential attendees who didn’t complete registration, enabling them to recover ticket sales and drive more revenue. By offering these insights within Whova, we aimed to help organizers see more tangible value in our registration system and strengthen long-term retention.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
I designed the Abandon Registration Campaign tool that gives organizers clear visibility into who dropped off and where in the process they stopped. The dashboard lets them monitor campaign performance and track recovered revenue in real time, while also showcasing Whova’s direct impact on their event earnings.
RESULTS
Achieved a median 29.7% ticket-sale recovery rate across events using the campaign.
Strengthened organizer retention by demonstrating clear revenue impact through the platform.
Before
After
CHALLENGE
Understanding attendee interests early helps organizers plan session times and room capacities effectively. However, Whova didn’t have a built-in way for organizers to see attendee session preferences ahead of time. While they could set capacity limits with the existing Session Cap feature, it was up to attendees to decide when to RSVP—often at the last minute. This made it difficult for organizers to plan ahead and balance attendance across sessions.
BUSINESS NEED
Bring more value to organizers' planning process by helping them gauge session interest as soon as attendees complete event registration. The goal was to give organizers actionable data and tools to better gauge session interests, allocate space, and enhance the overall planning experience.
MY ROLE AND CONTRIBUTION
I revamped the legacy Session RSVP page to align with Whova’s design system standards and make it easier for organizers to showcase event sessions and speakers.
The redesigned flow prompts attendees to review the agenda and RSVP right after registration. It also allows organizers to send reminders to collect headcounts sooner and plan room sizes and logistics more effectively.
RESULTS
56% of conferences enabled session RSVP post-launch.
Addressed a key customer request, with organizers reporting greater confidence in pre-event planning.