App Profile: ATD Conferences & Events

Babymunoz

Rating: 5/5

Previous years were spotty. This has made my experience so much better

Freakout1

Rating: 2/5

Every time you open the app it refreshes to the main screen loosing your spot. Then you have to sit through 2 loading splash images and a third unskippable ad. Checking out the session list and need to find the expo map? Hit the back button, doesn’t go back. Hit it again and now it backs all the way out to the main screen. Click a session for more information and the app freezes for 10 seconds before loading, twice it never loaded and just force closed itself. Want to check out the downloaded slides? Good luck, whole app freezes. Want to check out your saved notes and sessions? It just opens up in a web browser. Got 50 notifications throughout the day about “lunch time!” Or “check out this vendor” but want to clear them out? Can’t do it in bulk, or even swipe to dismiss - you have to go one by one and open them up to clear them as read. Random pop ups tell you to refresh the app for more up to date session info, but the instructions don’t actually refresh the data (pull down to refresh function doesn’t work). Does the app have all the info you need? Sure, but it’s a horrible design.

Observations and Opportunities

Rating: 2/5

The speakers are awesome. The exhibit hall is overwhelming and feels like one big giant sales pitch. Having speakers in the Exhibit Hall does not work. There is not enough seating space and it is very difficult to hear; the acoustics of the hall are not conducive to speakers. The app is underwhelming. Once so selected my sessions, I went to download the slides, thinking I would receive the slides for the sessions I selected only; not 6,000 slides for the entire conference. The notes function is great. But if you click out to view slides to do a poll in the middle of a session you lose your notes. The functionality needs a save feature. It only allows you to e-mail and I don’t want to send an email until I have captured all the notes at the end of the session. Again, the speakers are amazing. Some of your logistics need work.