Conference+

Conference+ · 2021 · Technology · via Flipside Group

A virtual events platform built around depth: watch the event full screen, then pull back to reveal the schedule, documents and live chat wrapped around the stream, and dive straight back in. Sketched in under half a day, it went on to boom over Covid and still hosts events today.

Introduction

Conference+ started with a fifteen-minute phone call. One of the co-founders at Flipside, where I was working, rang me about an idea he had for a platform called Avexis: somewhere companies could host their annual meetings entirely online, with a live stream, a schedule, document downloads and a way for everyone to chat. Given the working relationship we had, I said yes, asked for a bit of time, and went away to think it through.

The ask was simple. Bring a whole conference into a single online space: somewhere people could watch the main stage live, follow the agenda, reach the documents that mattered, and talk to each other while it all happened.

Strategic thinking & planning

Coming off Digicel Play, I had been enjoying playing with depth. Most interfaces work left to right and top to bottom, but the depth axis, pushing things forward and back, still felt underused, and that became my way in. I started from how people actually watch an event. If you’re just absorbing a keynote, you want it full screen, in all its glory. The moment something sparks your interest, you want to reach everything around it quickly and then get back to watching. So you land in full screen, with picture-in-picture if you want it. To engage, you reduce the video from full screen without ever losing the stream, and the event opens up around the feed: the full schedule down the left, the documents tied to what’s on screen along the bottom, and the continual chat from everyone taking part on the right. A further panel slides out on the left with more detail on the event itself, plus FAQs and contact. That was the whole principle, and I had it designed in under half a day. I took the concept back to the founder, and he loved it: he hadn’t expected this, but it felt completely on point. From there it was a few iterations over a few days.

Outcomes

The Avexis platform you see below came straight out of those first designs. I moved on soon after, leaving to work at Vitol, and then Covid arrived. Because the platform was ready to go, the team built it out, and it boomed: suddenly a lot of companies needed to host their events online, and they hosted them here. It’s still live today, still running events, with brands you’ll recognise on it (OPPO used it for one of their corporate events). What I’m proudest of is that the design has barely changed from those first iterations. A few tweaks here and there, but the core premise holds: full screen, zoom out to everything you can engage with, then come back into the experience. Two modes, passive and interactive. A short involvement from me for a big impact, which is exactly how I like to work.