Today, we are excited to introduce the new Grip homepage and navigation system, which will be rolled out over the coming months. This new approach will make Grip the most versatile event engagement platform while strengthening its focus on accelerating opportunities and driving business results through connections and content.
Over the last year, the needs of organisers have profoundly changed. Pre-pandemic, event matchmaking tools were there to amplify the in-person event experience. Now, organisers need greater customisation and the ability to make their brand experience carry across all platforms, whether their event website, virtual event or in-person event platforms.
Customisable Blocks
Grip already has a ‘block’ based homepage design, which means we had the fundamental building blocks (pun intended!) to improve the experience. However, we’re taking the concept to the next level by introducing several new blocks and increased branding and differentiation between the existing blocks available on the platform by picking from a range of layouts for each block.
Background Images
The entire home page will have a background image, which can be just a single colour or more dynamic brand-related images to personalise your event experience further.
Quick Links
One of the first blocks added is a quick links block, making it easier for people to navigate from the home page to critical parts of the platform to achieve tremendous event success.
Header Blocks
We’re also introducing critical new updates to the header blocks. Rather than just being one image, you’ll now be able to set different styles, ranging from an image carousel or a 2-column header block with video and text.
Meetings, Sessions and Event Agenda’s
Sponsored content is a critical element of the event experience of the future. As such, the ‘session holding images’ that we see so many organisers rely on deserve a more prominent place on the homepage.
But it’s not just content that we wanted to make more visually appealing and differentiated in the experience. The meetings will also be getting a facelift resulting in more explicit calls to actions that will accelerate opportunities even faster at events.
Two-tiered navigation system.
Whether it's horizontal navigation across the top or vertical in the left sidebar, almost all platforms have a 'flat' navigation structure meaning all navigation items are of equal importance.
We believe that this is not appropriate for the versatile event experiences that organisers are looking to create.
As such, organisers will be able to set 'primary' and 'secondary' navigation items. This change ensures that more essential event elements stay towards the top while keeping secondary navigation items lower down the page.
This update will also stop people from feeling overwhelmed while still giving participants who are familiar with the platform an easy and fast way to navigate.
Homepage Roll Out
These homepage changes will be rolled out gradually over the coming 3-6 months, with the first changes expected in late June. It will be fully compatible with the existing set-up of events, and every 2 to 4 weeks, new enhancements will be made available.
Due to our agile development style, we shy away from giving hard deadlines for specific developments. Still, you can be assured that we're all working hard to bring these significant improvements to you as quickly as possible with the highest level of quality.
