Creating a Scalable Registration Experience for EA-hosted events

SUMMARY & IMPACT

Designed a modular registration flow for EA-hosted events that launched 35% faster and improved post-event NPS scores by 18 points. I led user research and worked with designers to refine user flows and prototypes, using insights from testing to improve clarity and streamline the scheduling process for a better user experience.

Role/Duration: Experience Design Researcher & Strategist, Jan - Mar 2021

Main Contributions: User testing, User flows, User journey mapping, Workshop facilitation, Card sorting

Team: 2 UX Researchers, 3 UI/UX Designers, 2 Project Managers, 2 Engineers

Employer: Electronic Arts (via ProUnlimited)

OVERVIEW

EA needed a flexible web registration system that could support both internal and player-facing events across teams (FIFA Global Series, Apex Legends Global Series, etc).

Each event had unique logistics, audiences, and goals—but users needed a consistent, intuitive way to register, confirm details, and attend.

THE CHALLENGE

How can we create a registration flow that is both intuitive for attendees and adaptable for EA’s diverse range of events?

BUSINESS NEED

Streamline operations by offering a scalable, cost-effective web registration system that reduces the time and effort required to launch EA event pages.

USER NEED

Equip game teams with flexible registration tools adaptable to various event types and tailored to the specific needs of each studio.

THE RESULTS & IMPACT

35%↑

Faster launch time by introducing a reusable, modular registration design that reduced design and development effort across teams.

18 NPS↑

Increase in NPS (Net Promoter Score) from 42 to 60 post-event

Design Process

Discover & Define

Collaborate with stakeholders and gather insights to define user needs and identify key pain points.

Design

Develop wireframes based on user flows and journey maps from initial research.

Iteration

Testing wireframes with target users to inform hi-fidelity prototypes. Conduct a second round of testing with updated prototypes.

Deploy

Launch solution and collect metrics to assess performance and identify future improvements.

DISCOVER & DEFINE:
STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP

To kick off the project, we met with product managers involved in the planning and execution of EA events to create customer journey maps in a collaborative workshop.

This approach ensured we captured the needs of different attendee groups and addressed any key nuances. My role was to lead facilitation and create sticky notes on the Miro board so stakeholders could solely focus on discussion.

Workshop output showing alignment across teams on top user priorities, which later drove changes to time display logic and user role access.

DISCOVER & DEFINE: WORKSHOP FINDINGS

The product managers overseeing these events brought forward key pain points:

Competitive players need logistical details as soon as possible, in order to compete.

Players need to agree to waivers, make travel arrangements, and obtain visa letters before they can attend the event. This made us think: "How can we provide and cover this information during the web registration process?" Workload can be reduced for product managers and community managers if forms such as waivers are covered while registering.

Attendees need accessibility information or options for travel assistance (for competitors) in order to complete registration without worry.

International players may require additional resources for navigation, while general attendees with disabilities need detailed venue information to ensure accessibility needs are met. These insights highlighted the need to incorporate include travel assistance for competitors and general information on venue accessibility and ADA compliance.

Some barriers included age and requirement of an Origin account.

Participants under 18 can attend but require parental supervision, leading us to include parent contact information and agreement to terms and conditions during registration. Additionally, for players without an Origin account, we needed a touchpoint to guide them through creating one.

DISCOVER & DEFINE: USER FLOWS

Following the workshop, we developed user flow diagrams to map out the end-to-end registration process, using insights from workshops to help us identify potential friction points early on.

User flows included event registration, rescheduling, and favoriting an experience. We recognized potential pain points such as navigating and scheduling events with overlapping timeslots.

User flow for registering for event for the general attendee. We noticed that while attendees can reserve for multiple experiences, we needed to ensure there was a system in place to prevent conflicting time slots.

Before designing wireframes, we identified the need for flexibility as each EA event had its own unique requirements.

We made sure our initial designs would adapt easily to different event scales and user expectations and structured the registration flow to be modular, allowing for customization while keeping the core experience consistent.

Wireframes for event registration, event schedule, reserving an experience and removing a reservation.

ITERATION: USER TESTING

To ensure our current flow was clear and easy to navigate, our next step was to conduct user testing.

We conducted remote usability sessions with 8 participants, including past interns and gaming community members- I moderated four out of the eight of the sessions and took notes for the other sessions. Participants completed tasks including registering for the expo, filtering interests, and rescheduling conflicting experiences.

The goal was to measure task success, user satisfaction (NPS and SUS), and identify pain points in the user flow.

ITERATION: USER TESTING FINDINGS

This round revealed key issues in the current wireframe design:

Users expressed confusion around certain terminology, such as “unregister” vs. “cancel"

As a result, this impacted their ability to confidently manage reservations and event cancellations. Participants also struggled with the distinction between "events" and "experiences," which led to misunderstandings about the nature of activities themselves.

Users did not find the filter slider intuitive.

Some of the filter options, particularly the "Coming up slider," were not easily understood. Participants found it difficult to grasp the functionality, which limited their ability to narrow down their event choices effectively.

Scheduling conflicts interrupted users' flow.

The process of rescheduling conflicting events required users to navigate away from the current screen, which disrupted their workflow and added unnecessary complexity.

By triangulating both qualitative and quantitative data using SUS and NPS, we also concluded that users found the registration process functional but had areas of improvement.

Although the task completion rate was a perfect 100%, the System Usability Score (SUS) came in at 76, which is considered acceptable, and the Net Promoter Score (NPS) was 88, indicating strong satisfaction (with any score above 0 being positive). While the quantitative data showed users were generally satisfied, the qualitative insights highlighted specific areas for improvement.

ITERATE: HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGNS

After the first usability test, several adjustments were made and presented in the high-fidelity designs based on initial feedback.

This included updated language for clarity (e.g., replacing “unregister” with “cancel”), simplified filter options, and modals for rescheduling in order to reduce unnecessary page navigation.

A second round of user testing on the hi-fidelity prototype was then conducted to validate the implemented changes and identify additional areas that need refinement.

We asked 5 participants to complete tasks similar to the wireframe testing (registering for the expo, filtering interests, and rescheduling conflicting experiences) and to gather their preferences on 3 event schedule designs.

Users were presented with three versions of the "Event Schedule" design and asked about their preference.

This second round of testing revealed:

Most users preferred modals for filtering.

Three out of five participants found it more efficient to use a modal-based filter system, as it provided a clearer view of all available options without requiring users to navigate to a new page.

The majority of participants favored a schedule layout that prioritized “All-day Experiences” at the top of the page (version A).

They found this arrangement more intuitive, as these experiences often carried more importance and needed to be visible at first glance.

From the wireframe testing, we noticed confusion from users on the nuances between "event" and "experience" and wanted to test this further.

I created a closed card sorting test on Optimal Workshop, asking users to group activities into either an event or experience. To gather more accurate results, we followed up with a second round of unmoderated card sorting to expand our data and validate the findings.

Based on both card sorts (moderated and unmoderated), we were able to determine that most people consider “Events” to mean an entire group of “Experiences.”

The hi-fidelity usability testing successfully identified further refinements and validated design decisions- and the experience highlighted areas where we could have gone further.

Incorporating A/B testing for event schedules

Rather than relying solely on user preferences, this approach would provide more actionable data by comparing how different designs impact usability and satisfaction.

Usability testing of flows for all personas

At the time of the project, we had the time and resources for two usability tests focused on the core flow. If I could revisit this, I would have proposed conducting additional unmoderated or moderated testing of the web registration flow for competitors with FIFA and Apex professional players or, if given more time, additional rounds of moderated testing across all user flows.

contact
kddomines@gmail.com