Connecting IT Pros

Goal: Make it easier for IT pros to connect with each other during in-person events using the Spiceworks mobile app.

Team: Worked with the Mobile Team Engineers, Community PM and Sr. Community Manager.

My role: Research, UI and interaction design

Tools: Sketch, Principle, Invision

The mobile app development team approached me with an idea to add profile QR codes to the Spiceworks app so that users' could find each other more easily within the forums. With our annual SpiceWorld conference coming up soon, they wanted to get the feature implemented in time to use it for the conference since there would be many IT pros connecting during the event.

Left: Initial idea to add an icon next to Settings Right: Proposed idea to move Avatar Edit and use that location for the QR code scanner

Left: Initial idea to add an icon next to Settings
Right: Proposed idea to move Avatar Edit and use that location for the QR code scanner

Challenges

  • Implementing a QR code that could be scanned through the app or via a third-party scanner app and would still take you to the users' profile either in the app (if you have it installed) or through the web browser.

  • Making the feature intuitive to find and use.

  • Short timeline for design and implementation.

The team's initial idea was to have a screen with both your profile QR code showing and the code scanner showing so that you could do either from the same view.

After spending some time discussing the various possibilities we landed on adding an icon in the profile view of the app that would lead the user to a screen with their own profile QR code on it with a button that would lead to an in-app code scanner.

During exploration of how some other apps have handled this type of feature and what would work best for our users, I came up with an implementation that would move the "edit profile picture" function (rarely used feature in the app) to a tap on your avatar and replace it with the QR code function.

Walk-through of how the feature works.

Walk-through of how the feature works.

After running into a few technical difficulties during development that we felt were important to resolve before releasing the feature, we held off on releasing the feature in time for the conference, giving us more time.

Results

The Mobile Team was able to demo the feature during their product workshop at the conference and the response from the IT pros was very positive, with many asking for a timeline for release so they could use it during their next SpiceCorps meetup.

This feature has since been released into both iOS and Android versions of the Spiceworks app.