Notifications that foster engagement

Notifications that foster engagement

Designed the holistic notification system to foster engagement between event organizers and attendees. The data observed since the initial launch indicates significant improvement in attendee responses.

Role

Product designer

type of work

Product design

Team

Product team

(Event Engagement)

Client

Hopin

Year

2021-2022

Project background

Our mission in the Engagement Team at Hopin was to elevate user interaction by enhancing the virtual event experience.

Research revealed that maintaining attendee engagement was a complex challenge:

  • Only 11.1% of attendees were using interactive tools like chat, polls, or Q&A.

  • 34% of attendees were leaving sessions within the first 10 minutes.

Organizers, meanwhile, struggled to manage engagement while juggling repetitive tasks and sending timely prompts.

After analysis and prioritization, it became evident that notifications could play a crucial role in addressing these challenges by delivering timely, relevant updates to attendees and offering organizers an easy-to-manage system to drive engagement.

Defining a holistic notification system

To address the engagement challenge, we initiated a ¹cross-functional design sprint, bringing together teams to collaboratively map out notification journeys across the event experience, organizer dashboards, and hybrid scenarios. A key question emerged during this sprint: How might we ensure notifications are delivered at the right time and in the relevant context?
Following this, we conducted a ²sequence of research studies to better understand user expectations and behaviors, which revealed several key insights.
  • Timeliness: Organizers and attendees prioritize timely content delivery for key segments.

  • Relevance: Attendees engage more with notifications that align with their interests.

  • Channels: The notification center is viewed as the main source for critical event updates.

  • Behavior: Attendees often multitask, so notifications need to re-engage them effectively.

These insights shaped our development of ³universal notification principles, which ensured consistency and scalability throughout Hopin's ecosystem. These principles not only guided our event notifications but also provided a framework for other product teams to create cohesive, user-friendly notification systems.

Designing notifications that foster engagement

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Supportive

Notifications should assist users in achieving their event goals, which can vary depending on the user type and event format. These goals may range from obtaining information to engaging with speakers or making business connections.

Seamless

Notifications should integrate smoothly into the event experience without disrupting the user’s focus. They should feel like a natural part of the flow, not an interruption.

Relevant

Notifications should be directly aligned with the user’s goals, ensuring they deliver content that is timely and purposeful, driving meaningful engagement.

Give control

Users should have the flexibility to customize their notification settings, tailoring their experience to suit their preferences and needs.

Impact and Results

The notification system had a clear impact on attendee engagement, significantly boosting interactions across key event activities.

  • 7.4% of attendees who received a preview notification asked a question in the Q&A, compared to only 2% of attendees who didn’t receive one.

  • 37.1% of attendees who received a preview notification responded to a poll, versus just 5.5% who didn’t receive a notification.

These metrics highlight the effectiveness of timely and relevant notifications in fostering deeper engagement. We significantly improved attendee participation in key event activities. This solution not only addressed the initial problem of low engagement but also laid the foundation for a scalable notification system that can continue to evolve as Hopin's product ecosystem grows.