Totem
Turning Informa’s event stage into a live webinar platform
I helped turn an existing digital stage into Informa’s in-house webinar platform, balancing reliable attendee access with the producer controls needed to run large live events.
Context
Background
Informa Webinars is a browser-based platform for hosting online presentations, workshops and seminars. It was owned by Informa Engage, the team responsible for driving digital marketing revenue for brands connected to Informa’s event ecosystem.
The business needed to replace dependency on a third-party provider, and I was the sole designer adapting an existing ConnectMe virtual stage into a standalone product for registration, audience interaction, slide management and presenter controls.
Challenge
The platform had to be built and launched at speed, using an existing event-stage interface as the foundation. That gave the team a faster route to launch, but the original stage had not been designed for more complex webinar workflows. The main trade-off was deciding which workflows could fit inside the existing stage, and which needed more dedicated space.
Research
The project did not have a formal discovery phase; requirements came from Informa Engage, product expectations, technical constraints and live support feedback.
Our team monitored Crisp during webinars and saw a clear pattern: many attendees joined at the start time, so access issues became urgent within minutes. Early large webinars generated around 60–75 access-related support chats near the start of the session, mostly caused by PIN email deliverability.
Highlights
Helping attendees reach the live stage faster
Attendees needed to enter the live stage without relying on a fragile PIN step at the moment an event started. I supported the move from emailed PIN entry to instant access links, removing manual PIN entry and allowing direct links to be sent even when someone had not completed registration. Access-related support chats during large events dropped from around 60–75 to fewer than 10 per webinar.
Giving attendees a focused stage view
Attendees needed to watch the livestream, ask questions, use chat and respond to polls without seeing the tools used to run the webinar. I designed the attendee view around participation, while role-based permissions gave presenters and producers access to more advanced controls. This kept the audience experience clear while allowing the same platform to support live operations behind the scenes.
Giving presenters more space to manage slides
Slide-heavy webinars required presenters to see what was live, what was next, and what actions were available mid-session. Some sessions involved 3–5 presenters and multiple slide decks, which made the narrow right-hand panel feel cramped. I designed a pop-out slide panel so presenters could manage slides in a larger workspace without delaying launch for a dedicated presenter view.
Extending platform registration for courses and semesters
Educational webinars created a different registration problem: learners might attend many sessions over a long period. I designed a multi-webinar registration flow for single webinars, courses and semesters, instead of forcing learners to sign up to each session individually. For longer programmes, a semester could include 10–20 webinars, so grouped registration removed repeated sign-up steps.
Helping presenters manage audience questions
Chat worked for general discussion, but speaker questions needed a clearer place to live.
I designed Q&A as a dedicated interaction area so questions could sit separately from chat and be handled more deliberately by presenters. Larger company town halls regularly generated around 150–200 audience questions over an hour, making Q&A one of the most active parts of the live experience.
Impact
Results
The platform replaced Informa Engage’s previous webinar provider and became the team’s in-house tool for live webinar delivery. It supported 70+ live events in its first year, including major internal events with 3,000–5,000 attendees. Internal reporting showed session presence, Q&A was heavily used during larger events, and access-related support pressure reduced after the move to instant access links.
Reflection
The biggest lesson was that live-event UX is shaped by timing: a small access issue becomes much more serious when hundreds or thousands of people try to join at once. Reusing the existing stage helped the team launch quickly, but slide management showed where inherited layouts start to strain under complex workflows.
With more time, I would measure support volume more consistently, test presenter workflows in rehearsals, and explore a dedicated producer view for slide-heavy events.
Summary
Informa Webinars had to become a reliable live-event product without the time or freedom to redesign the stage from scratch. The design work balanced fast attendee access, focused audience participation, presenter control and producer needs within an existing product foundation.
The result was an in-house webinar platform that could support repeated large events while continuing to evolve into more flexible registration and learning use cases.