Fourwaves Website Builder Redesign
Fourwaves
2024 - 2025
Who is Fourwaves
Fourwaves is a Montreal-based SaaS platform that helps academic and scientific communities organize events with ease. Designed specifically for academics, it offers an all-in-one solution for managing registrations, abstract submissions, peer reviews, program schedules, and virtual poster sessions. Trusted by leading institutions like MIT, NASA, and McGill, Fourwaves empowers organizers to focus on content and collaboration rather than logistics.
Tools
Year
2024 - 2025
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Industry
Event Technology (SaaS)
Team
Tamara Laforest, Senior Product Designer
Matthieu Chartier, Founder
Vincent Paquette, Front-end developer
Guillaume Fugère, Full stack developer
An easy-to-use website builder that empowers organizers to create polished, professional event websites—no design skills required.
The problem
Within Fourwaves, event organizers can create their own event websites where users can register, explore the event program, view participants, and more.
However, the existing website builder offered limited functionality and lacked the flexibility needed for organizers to design pages that aligned with their branding. Inconsistent components and spacing issues also led to a disjointed, unpolished look.
Goal
Our goal was to completely revamp the website builder to provide a more seamless and flexible editing experience—without increasing complexity for users.
We aimed to introduce real-time, WYSIWYG editing so users could instantly see their changes as they made them. At the same time, we focused on expanding customization options in a way that felt intuitive, avoiding overwhelming interfaces or steep learning curves.
Research results & insights
Through survey responses and feedback gathering with got a list of request and pain points from users:
Image Display & Flexibility
Limited options for controlling image size, placement, and alignment with text.
Only images grid layouts were available, resulting in long scrolling when many images were uploaded.
Small images were difficult to view without zooming, impacting usability and engagement.
Content Sections
Speaker section lacked flexibility, making it hard to support longer bios or hide details when needed.
Users wanted the ability to insert buttons directly into sections for clearer navigation and calls to action.
Long content lists defaulted to infinite scrolling, with no grouping or pagination, creating hard-to-navigate pages.
Customization & Branding
The homepage hero lacked customization options, which caused many event sites to look identical.
Inconsistent sponsor logo spacing created unbalanced layouts.
No way to add social media links in headers or footers, limiting event promotion.
We also reviewed how current users were building their event websites and discovered that many relied on workarounds or “hacks” to achieve the desired layout or formatting. This highlighted clear gaps in the builder’s capabilities and reinforced the need for a more flexible, intuitive solution. Here’s some examples:
Multiple columns
The website builder didn’t support multi-column layouts, leading some users to upload images of text formatted in two columns as a workaround. This created significant accessibility issues, particularly for users relying on screen readers.
Sponsors logo spacing
The sponsor logo section lacked adequate spacing between logos, and inconsistent logo sizes created a visually unbalanced and cluttered appearance.
Infinite scroll
When users upload a large number of images, the page defaults to infinite vertical scrolling with no layout controls or grouping options. The lack of pagination or collapsible sections makes it difficult to navigate, adds unnecessary load time, and diminishes the overall professionalism of the event site.
Scoping
Based on the insights gathered, we carefully scoped the project to determine how far we wanted to expand the website builder and which improvements needed to be prioritized.
Understanding that most event organizers are not designers—and often lack the time to fine-tune every visual detail—we focused on delivering meaningful flexibility without overcomplicating the experience. To maintain consistency, accessibility, and ease of use, we intentionally excluded certain advanced customization options such as font color, background color, font type, padding and margins.
Competitive analysis
Before starting the design, I conducted a competitive analysis of tools such as Wix, Squarespace, Eventbrite, and Google Sites. The goal was to understand their feature sets, value propositions, and user flows, while identifying both strengths to learn from and gaps to address.
The analysis revealed that most platforms rely heavily on drag-and-drop editing and broad customization, which can be powerful but often overwhelming for non-technical users. It also showed that event-specific needs—such as quick setup, branding flexibility, and clear communication of schedules and details—were not fully prioritized. These findings informed our decision to streamline the builder and tailor the experience to the unique workflows of event organizers.
Iteration
To design a site builder that was both flexible and easy to use, we explored a wide range of interaction patterns and customization options. Early prototypes tested different menu structures and editing flows, but user feedback revealed that too many options risked overwhelming organizers. Based on these insights, we streamlined the experience by scaling back complexity, focusing instead on the essential tools that delivered the most impact without adding friction.
As part of this process, we recreated several client websites within the builder. This helped us validate how easily organizers could reproduce their existing brand and layouts, while also ensuring the output met the level of quality and consistency they expected.
Release
We decided to split the feature into two releases to maintain product quality and minimize the learning curve for existing users. The first release focused on stability, offering only the existing content blocks to ensure a smooth transition. In the second release, we introduced new blocks—such as the countdown, hero section, navigation customization, multi-column layouts, multi-row structures, and image carousel—providing users with more advanced customization options once they were already comfortable with the builder. Here's some of the blocks planned in the second release:
Multi-column
The multi-column block allows users to structure content side-by-side, making pages more dynamic and easier to scan. It supports flexible column layouts (e.g., two, three, or more columns), enabling users to showcase text, images, or calls-to-action in a well-organized grid.
Multi-row
The multi-row block is built for stacking several rows of related content within one component. It supports alternating layouts—such as switching the order between image and text—to keep the page visually engaging.
Hero Customization
The hero customization block gives full control over the most prominent section of the page. Users can pick different layouts (full-width, full-screen, overlays), choose background types (image, video, or gradient), and adjust text alignment. This ensures the hero matches the event’s branding while clearly communicating its key message or call to action.
Reusable Components
To ensure consistency and scalability, I designed the builder around a library of reusable components. Each block—such as the hero, countdown, and carousel—was created as a flexible module with defined variations. This approach not only simplified development but also allowed event organizers to customize their sites without losing visual coherence.
Figma Organization
To streamline collaboration with developers, I structured the Figma file with clear organization and documentation. Each page included explanations of components and flows, making it easy for developers to understand functionality at a glance. I also designed every possible use case and variation, ensuring that no scenarios were overlooked during development and handoff.
What I learned
Balancing flexibility vs. simplicity is critical; building in phases helps adoption.
What went well
Validation with real client websites; strong collaboration with devs; reusable components sped up iteration.
What could be improved
more user testing earlier; more time to refine accessibility in first release.
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