spectacle: new service design
Project starts: January 2019
Timeline: 9 weeks
Client: Design for Service, Carnegie Mellon University
Skills: UX, Pop-Up Shop Design, User Research, Service Blueprint
Spectacle is a service concept that curates personalized package experiences centered around a cultural music event, paired with dining and entertainment.
The challenge
The challenge was to create a new service for music, using service blueprint and user research to test along the way.
MY ROLE
I was the environments designer, working closely with the UX design lead, visual designer and researcher.
I worked on user research, service blueprint, UX, and pop-up shop design.
design PROCESS
We began by discussing music's impact on our lives and identified five key themes: Patterns: Adapting to daily life activities. Culture: Exploring different cultures. Access: Providing lessons or instruction. Inclusivity: Engaging other senses for inclusivity. Environments: Utilizing physical environments.
Our conversation converged on the overlap between culture and patterns, focusing on using music to explore cultures. We approached this in two ways: reconnecting with cultural foundations and expanding interests beyond the familiar.
Defining the Problem
Through our research, we found a steady decline in attendance at classical, jazz, dance, and opera performances. The cultural arts need fresh audiences to thrive. We asked ourselves: How might a music service increase engagement with music genres that are struggling or falling out of fashion?
To better understand the current state of the audience, we sent out surveys focusing on the opera industry. We discovered that very few people attended operas of their own volition. However, most who had seen an opera enjoyed the experience. Many people are reluctant to attend due to false preconceptions about what they will experience or hesitation to invest time, money, and effort into something unfamiliar.
interviews
To understand the stakeholders’ challenges and experiences, we spoke with members of the opera community, including music instructors, Pittsburgh Festival Opera staff, and marketing directors.
One of the insights we discovered was that there are limited opera seasons per year, so we pivoted to design a service that includes all institutions of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, such as the symphony, ballet, and concert series.
User test web app
After defining our service in detail and designing the service web app, we conducted user tests to understand our target users and identify usability concerns in our initial wireframes. Key questions included users' comfort levels with sharing information, the critical information needed for smooth operation, and the transparency required for package assembly.
The user tests revealed two types of users: those who want full control over their evening and those who prefer a fully packaged VIP experience. Users appreciated minimizing the onboarding process and showed interest in event types like bars, ice cream places, coffee shops, museums, and parks. They suggested including illustrated people, generating different combinations, displaying reviews, and offering physical invitations, such as a boarding pass.
Final RESULT
We designed an entirely new service to tackle declining engagement with struggling or outdated music genres. Spectacle is an end-to-end service that curates personalized experiences centered around a cultural music event, paired with dining and entertainment. Each main touchpoint addresses the key problems identified in our research, offering a unique and immersive experience that integrates cultural music with other engaging elements. This innovative approach aims to revitalize interest in these music genres and provide a memorable, holistic experience for users.
Physical invitation serves as a passport to their experience