ROH FIRST

For Royal Opera House First Timers

In April 2017, Royal College of art partnered with Royal Opera house to create an end to end customer experience with launch of their Open Up Project.

Open Up is a project ROH launched to re-design the building architecture to aim for not only can it fulfil its mission of greater public engagement, but also to engage with communities around.

Process

This project was a a very short project (4 weeks). During the process, we we applied 4 stages of double diamond method to each week.

DESK RESEARCH

From desk research, we got to understand different services ROH is currently offering, what their future vision is, and different areas we could explore. We also got to look at their progress with the Open-Up projects. Where they are currently at, rendered images of the new building, and persona of their visitors.

Visit to ROH

We visited Royal Opera House to have a tour of the building as well as to have meeting with Joe McFadden (CTO), Tom Nelson (Creative Producer, Learning and Participation), Serge Kovacevic (Technology Service Delivery Manager) and Ellen West (Head of Digital Products and Creative Studios, Audiences and Media). We learned that what ROH wanted was to focus on how to bring people to the new ROH after the launch of their new building, the Open Up Project. We gained various insights from the meeting including:

What they want to have as a new service experience
Holistic experience for audiences & emotional experience
Retain their customers
Bring ROH closer to public
What they want as an outcome
Utilize shops and restaurants and second income
Pain points they face
Late arrivals
e-ticketing experience
Facts
Indoor localization, wifi, and beacons will be available
Streaming services are not their priority
Inspirations they mentioned
Tottenham Football Stadium
Use of LED screen
Have not thought a lot of tourists
This helped us to explore new topic of “New Comers” and “Late Arrivals”. We found opportunity in the unknown and uncertainty they face during their visit to the ROH.

VISITING ROH AS AUDIENCES

We wanted to experience the service and the journey ourselves. So we booked ticket and attended the performance. Through this research we were able to identify the steps more precisely and be empathetic to different emotions and confusions visitors feel.

INSIGHT GATHERING + AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

Then, we gathered all the insights we collected and mapped our based in category.

SYSTEM MAP

Creating system helped us see the different flows of financial, transactional and information that the user go through when using the service.

STAKEHOLDER MAP

Creating stakeholder map helped us to see broader picture of different people and organizations involved in the experience of visting ROH. It was much helpful when we distinguished people involved from ROH and people outside of ROH.

Defining 4Ws:

What: New comers to Royal Opera House often have the perception of ROH being exclusive, elitist, and mysterious. Additionally, opera and ballets are often categorized as high-class cultural activities. So, for the new comers of ROH face lot of unknowns and uncertainties during their first experience such as: dress code, theatre manner, process involved in the journey, knowledge of performance, and etc.
Who: New comers to ROH
Where: Royal Opera House
When: With the Launch of Open Up Project

PERSONA

Dan...will go for the first time to an Opera show in ROH

Lives in Clapham/30 years old // Accountant
Travels by tube
Does not like to leave his comfort zone
Uses social media, smartphone, and tablet
Money is less of a constraint
Like sport activities
Wants to find activities he can enjoy with his girlfriend
One of his best friend is Brian, who is becoming an opera fan

CURRENT JOURNEY MAPPING

With the insights from the discover phase and having our persona in mind, we created a user journey to find opportunity area.

CURRENT USER JOURNEY

Dan's Current journey from Ji-Young Lee on Vimeo.

REFINED USER JOURNEY & INSIGHTS

After mapping out the journey on the board, we digitalized the journey. However, we also added emotional level to the journey as a main aspect audiences should look at while understanding the map.

Pain points

Audience has a lot of “jobs”
- Checking location
- Checking dress code
- Timing
- Collecting tickets
“Unknown” is big for new comers
Lot of navigating involved at the ROH (finding places)
Lot of waiting moments in the process.
Visitors queuing for several times.

Opportunities

Interaction time with ROH staff is short - mostly question and answering
There are no services that encourage audiences to share the experience
Multiple chance to encourage user for second income.
Intervals are opportunities to secondary incomes.
Ticketing as an opportunity to engage from pre-visit.
Multiple waiting times are opportunities to interact with audience.

OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

How might we help the first timers of Royal Opera House to become friends of ROH by alleviating the unknowns and uncertainties they feel during their first experience?