Several industry conferences were brought together to create two days of insights and networking from brand leaders, marketers, PR pros, communicators, and innovators.
Attendees came together for live streaming on October 22-23, 2020. The summit will be delivered ON-DEMAND starting November 9, 2020, and on-demand for multiple days after to learn, network, and better prepare for the challenges ahead. MAC Summit is available via the Capitol Communicator app on Android and Apple.
Across three tracks – marketing, advertising, and communications – MAC Summit features topics and sessions on the latest thinking in strategy, digital advertising, communications, crisis, search, email, video, design, B2B marketing, media relations, social media, analytics, internal communications, automation, disruptive technologies and much more.
Tools Used


My Role
I was the lead product designer on this project. I also conducted user research and distilled my findings.
The Team
The team consisted of one other product designer, four developers, and one product owner.
The Ask
Because of the COVID-19 safety protocols put in place, the 2020 MAC Summit needed to be held virtually. This has never been a virtual conference, so we had to create an engaging experience. We needed to create a virtual conference that felt valuable to attendees. Allow attendees to build their schedules and also allow them to interact with speakers and panelists through a custom Q&A platform. Design a robust suite of tools that made it easy for moderators and speakers to communicate with each other, queue up and present both synchronous and asynchronous media, and a powerful Q&A platform that helped manage questions from virtual crowds of hundreds of attendees.
The Challenge
We had the backbone of our mobile app in place, but we needed additional features to accommodate this virtual event on time.
Utilizing Amazon Chime, we had to create a video conference solution from scratch. Alongside that video conferencing solution, we needed to create a tool for event producers to queue up and present both synchronous and asynchronous media including panel discussions, keynote addresses, and prerecorded video presentations and messages from sponsors. We also needed an internal chat function within each session for event producers and presenters to talk and coordinate. Lastly, we needed to develop a Q&A tool that would allow attendees to submit questions for presenters and allow them to manage their questions. This tool allowed other attendees to view and up-vote questions that they wanted to be prioritized. This tool also allowed event producers to hide inappropriate questions from view.
Our Approach
I conducted an internal UXR interview with one of our staff who spoke at the summit. I also interviewed an outside event manager about event production and the nuances between in-person and virtual events.
As a team, we sat down and looked at our existing product offerings, other technologies we could tap into, and weighed all of that with the tight timeline.
Working closely with the developers and the PO, we conducted multiple internal meetings using the new platform and refined the product based on our experience. We also conducted our company-wide meetings on the platform as a stress test. Internal and client stakeholders would go through the registration process with us and we would modify the UI to create a better experience. We were constantly testing internally and externally.
The Solution
Reflection
The event was held with very minimal technical hiccups. We received lots of positive feedback from the client, from attendees, and the event presenters. Along with the positive feedback from the event, our company was featured in a local news spot that featured the product prominently. This solution has become one of Mosaic Learning’s flagship products.
Looking back, I would have liked to user test prototypes with event managers and with communications professionals. I also would have labeled icons for better accessibility and clarity.
During this project, I learned about the AWS suite and all of those tools. I learned about event production from an event manager’s perspective. I also learned that there are a lot of hurdles to jump to get an app published in the top two app marketplaces.