A better conference badge

Posted by Jaan on July 18th, 2009 | 2 comments

We’ve all had them dangling around our necks – conference badges. But what do they really do for us? They tell the event staff that we’re allowed in to certain areas (and maybe even allowed a “free” lunch).

But how are they useful to us, the conference attendees? Ok, it’s handy to see people’s names, and see what their title or role is. Some badges have a schedule printed on them, which is nice.

Beyond that – usually the badge doesn’t do much more than just hang there.

The team behind UX Australia has been running a badge design competition to change all of that, and in late June I joined a very interesting discussion on what constitutes a good event badge (it’s a good quick read, I recommend it).

In my point of view a badge should do two things:
1) Help me identify people I know from the online world but that I have never met in real life.
2) Help me explore and experience the event in the best way possible.

So to put my money where my mouth is, and to cut a long story short, here is my suggestion for a better conference badge! The badge concept is a collaboration with Andreas Carlsson and more of our ideas can be found at UX Australia’s Flickr pool (we’ll add them throughout the weekend).

The better badge has…:

• A large photo or avatar; if I know your Twitter, Flickr or Facebook avatar I’ll spot you easier at the event.
• A peel off sticker to put on my shirt for the evening networking. Wearing a big badge in a bar feels weird and it looks poky… The sticker is better. And as it has a QR code there’s no need to fiddle with contact info. Snap it, done, cheers the next round is on me!
• No toxic, funny smelling plastic sleeve. It saves the organizers money, and it helps the planet.

More on the badge, and its different elements, are on Flickr. Please, do share your thoughts on the badge over there so that the UX Australia jury also gets the benefit of your thoughts. Thank you.

Update: Here is Andreas’ related post on designing not only a better badge but a better event experience.