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Info
Meeting

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Redesigning how prospective au pairs register for their first touchpoint with Cultural Care, across 26 countries.

Product Design UX Research International Markets Q1 2020

46%

Increase in signups

Within 2 months of launch

Countries served

One design that worked globally

Testing sessions

Across international markets

The Problem

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The Information Meeting is the first real conversation a prospective au pair has with Cultural Care. The registration flow was making them not show up.

Attending an Info Meeting is the critical first step in the au pair journey. But the registration experience was working against that goal. In high-volume markets like Germany, multiple daily meetings meant users faced pages of unstructured time slots with no geographic context, no explanation of what they were signing up for, and no clear path through the noise. The task for Q1 2020: increase Info Meeting registrations by 20% across all 26 countries.

The constraint that made this interesting was scale. A solution for Germany (dense urban markets, many sessions per day) had to work equally well for Colombia (sessions spread across cities hours apart by plane). One design, 26 countries, very different user realities.

How might we... Design a registration experience that works across 26 countries, accounting for geographic context, and makes signing up feel like the obvious next step?

The Process

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Landscape Analysis

I started by auditing the existing registration flow and benchmarking how other organizations serving young adults handled similar event registration. Competitors and universities offered a consistent answer: calendar-based selection interfaces. The structure of a calendar does a lot of cognitive work for the user. It communicates time, gives context for how many options exist, and makes selection feel manageable rather than overwhelming. That pattern became the starting hypothesis.

Wireframing and First Testing

My initial wireframes brought in a calendar view, space to explain what an Info Meeting actually is, and an FAQ section. I tested with 5 former au pairs. The calendar helped with organization but a new problem surfaced immediately: the design showed all sessions without any location filter. In Switzerland, two cities might be an hour apart by train. In Colombia, they could be a two-hour flight. Showing irrelevant sessions wasn't just noise. It was a trust problem. The design needed location awareness before anything else.

Revised Design

The revised flow added a location selector as the first screen, filtering all subsequent sessions to the user's city. From there: calendar-based session selection, contact info collection, and a confirmation screen with one-tap calendar integration. Four steps, each with exactly the information needed at that moment and nothing more.

In-Person Testing in Germany

I traveled to Dusseldorf to test with 7 young adults (ages 18-23) who had recently expressed interest in the program. All participants completed the flow successfully. The calendar integration on the confirmation screen was a standout: users loved that they could add the meeting directly to their phone without any extra steps. One piece of feedback came up repeatedly: what happens if I need to cancel or reschedule? The confirmation screen needed to answer that before they asked.

Handoff in Zurich

I traveled to Zurich to share findings with the content management team and complete developer handoff. Two additions came out of that session: clear cancellation and rescheduling instructions on the confirmation screen, and a note that a Cultural Care staff member would call to confirm attendance. Small copy changes that closed the open loop testing had surfaced.

Findings

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Location has to come first

The calendar view solved the organization problem but introduced a new one: users were seeing sessions they couldn't physically attend. In markets where cities are hours apart, an irrelevant session isn't just unhelpful. It erodes trust in the whole experience. Making location selection the first step filtered everything downstream and made the rest of the flow feel personally relevant rather than generic.

Calendar integration was the delight moment

The confirmation screen offered one-tap add-to-calendar for Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Calendar. Every user in the Dusseldorf sessions responded to this feature positively. It reduced the mental overhead of remembering the meeting and signaled that Cultural Care had thought about what comes after the registration, not just the registration itself.

Users needed to know the exit before they committed

Multiple participants asked the same question after completing the flow: what if I need to cancel? The question came up unprompted across sessions, which meant it was a real anxiety point, not a one-off. Adding clear cancellation and rescheduling instructions to the confirmation screen wasn't a feature. It was the removal of a reason to hesitate before registering.

"It's intuitive, it's clear on what I have to click on next."

Alina, user tester, Dusseldorf

The Solution

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[ Location selector screen ]

[ Calendar meeting selection ]

[ Confirmation with calendar add ]

A 4-step registration flow: pick your city, pick your session, enter your details, confirm. Works the same in Germany as it does in Colombia.

The location selector comes first, filtering every subsequent screen to relevant sessions only. The calendar view gives the selected city's upcoming meetings structure and visual clarity. Contact info collection is minimal: only what's needed to confirm attendance. The final screen gives users their meeting details, calendar integration options, and answers to the questions testing told me they would have.

The design was intentionally restrained. Each screen has one job. No information is shown before it's needed. The goal was to make registration feel like the natural next step, not a task to complete.

Design decision

Starting with location before showing any sessions meant the calendar only ever displayed options the user could actually attend. That single decision made the entire flow feel relevant rather than generic, and it scaled cleanly across all 26 markets without any market-specific logic.

Impact

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46%

Increase in signups

Exceeded the 20% goal within 2 months

Countries at launch

One responsive design, globally deployed

Usability sessions

Including in-person testing in Dusseldorf

100%

Task completion

All participants completed the flow in testing

Learnings

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Global design requires local context

A design that works in one country can quietly fail in another for reasons that have nothing to do with the UI. The geographic relevance problem wasn't visible in the wireframe. It only surfaced when I talked to people who actually had to navigate between cities to attend a meeting. Testing across markets, not just in one, is what made the solution actually work at scale. I'd push for that on any global product.

Simplicity drives conversion

The original flow had an information density problem: too many options, too little structure, no clear next step. The redesign didn't add features. It removed friction. Each screen had one job. The 46% signup increase wasn't the result of a clever new capability. It was the result of making the existing capability easier to use. Restraint is a design decision, and in conversion-focused flows, it's usually the right one.

Info
Meeting

The Problem

The Process

Landscape Analysis

Wireframing and First Testing

Revised Design

In-Person Testing in Germany

Handoff in Zurich

Findings

Location has to come first

Calendar integration was the delight moment

Users needed to know the exit before they committed

The Solution

Impact

Learnings

Global design requires local context

Simplicity drives conversion

More Work

MBTA

Curology

Cultural Care Au Pair

St. Louis City SC

InfoMeeting

The Problem

The Process

Landscape Analysis

Wireframing and First Testing

Revised Design

In-Person Testing in Germany

Handoff in Zurich

Findings

Location has to come first

Calendar integration was the delight moment

Users needed to know the exit before they committed

The Solution

Impact

Learnings

Global design requires local context

Simplicity drives conversion

More Work

MBTA

Curology

Cultural Care Au Pair

St. Louis City SC

Info
Meeting