isral Duke | Designer | Event Guide App

Overview

SQL Saturday Baton Rouge, LA is an annual developer-focused event which hosts talks and presentations on various .NET, SQL, and other technical topics.

Target Audience

The audience for SQL Saturday Guidebook are developers, database administrators, and other information technology workers such as designers, projects managers, business analysts, and other I.T. employees. Dark mode was chosen for the theme from an ad-hoc survey of would-be attendees. Many developers seem to prefer the dark mode of Visual Studio. A light mode is planned to be incorporated as a choice for subsequent years.

Initial Design Concepts

The initial design concepts were sketched on the fly in one of the initial planning meetings for the event. Using an ad hoc competitive analysis of other event guide apps, the event advisory board — myself included — generated the requirements on the spot.

Key Challenges

The app is designed to be easily developed using Xamarin and many pre-defined layouts within Xamarin. Using pre-defined layouts enabled us to produce the app more quickly for both iOS and Android phones. Additionally, the design for the app had to be complete within a week. We relied on Lean UX and Genius Design in lieu of user research.

Conclusion

As dark modes are all the rage among developer IDEs, I designed the app with dark mode only (which helped my short turn around time). For the next year I will add a light mode to the app. The annual event is including more management types, so the inclusion of an additional choice will be timely.