Creating a Fulfilling Online Theater Experience
User-Centered Research and Evaluation, Fall 2020
Team Members
- Nathan Jen: Co-Project Manager/Researcher
- Aaron Lee: Co-Designer/Researcher
- Dina Razek: Co-Designer/Researcher
- Janelle Wen: Co-Designer/Researcher
- Isabel Ngan: Co-Project Manager/Researcher
Executive Summary
With the shutdown of theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic, theaters have been looking for ways to enhance a theater experience online. Our team found that the biggest problem our audience has is the challenge of simulating the physical theatre experience in an online setting. We conducted several user research methods including contextual inquiry, think aloud, storyboarding, speed dating, and client data analysis to uncover insights about individuals interested in the performing arts. We found that people still try to have a fulfilling experience with online events, but find it hard to stay engaged due to a lack of a physical performance space, which frames the performance and helps keep the audience’s focus. This is in stark contrast to a small laptop screen that many people view digital performances on. Our solution gives users an opportunity to mimic desired physical theater interactions. This will allow users to have a more engaging and fulfilling experience, and speaks to their desire to continue catering to their love of theater.
Problem
With the escalation of the pandemic in March 2020, the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, a non-profit community performing arts center in Pittsburgh, PA , has been forced to move all theater programming to an online setting. While they have experimented with both live and recorded shows, they have struggled to create a theater experience that approaches the engagement of their typical in-person events. It brings up the question: how might we simulate the key touch points of the physical theatergoing experience in an online setting?
Our team decided to focus on simulating the physical experience in an online setting by looking into two main areas: elevating the value of the online performance and increasing community engagement beyond the traditional.
Methods, Evidence, and Insights
We started our process with collecting generative research in order to understand the existing online theater experiences. Our team constructed a research protocol, recruited participants, and hosted Think-aloud studies, with the aim of understanding how users engage with performing arts on digital platforms.
We asked participants to do a series of tasks on Facebook Video Platform, from a selection of three different previously live events. The tasks included finding a live performance online at a local theater, observing the online event, describing feelings about engagement with audience members and/or performers, among others.
From these protocols, we were able to generate common themes and insights:
- Users engage more with events that appear to them.
- The digital viewing experience lacks anticipation, context, and focus due to many distractions.
Using insights gained from the think-aloud protocol, our team constructed a contextual interview protocol. We asked participants to describe and show artifacts that informed them about past theater events that they attended, photos or videos from previous events, as well as the environment in which they consume digital theater. We created the protocol, recruited participants, and conducted artifact analysis, directed storytelling, and touchstone tour interviews with an aim of understanding:
- How viewers are situated physically and mentally when watching events.
- Motives behind interacting and sharing comments and opinions on digital theater events.
- How viewers gain context of what a performance or event is about.
Our team had an interpretation session in order to consolidate the notes and form an affinity diagram that highlighted the findings and similarities.
From the affinity diagram, we were able to generate five key insights:
- It’s almost impossible to stay engaged throughout an online theater event. The home environment is inherently distracting, and small laptop screens make it hard to stay immersed.
- People are not as excited about online theater events. Online theater lacks the formality of an in-person theater event. Similarly, there is no anticipation or spontaneous interaction as seen in traditional theater experience.
- People will still try to have a fulfilling experience with online events. Users find ways to immerse themselves in the experience, whether by using special headphones to listen, or by adjusting their space to reduce distractions.
- The physical theater space promotes a unique way for audience members to engage in conversation and connect with others. Conversations within a physical space are a result of spontaneity.
- People intentionally use theater as background entertainment when at home. The home environment makes it harder to be immersed (insight 1) and is more conducive to multitasking .
After conducting the contextual interviews and creating the affinity diagram, our team began to move into collecting evaluative research through speed dating in order to validate user needs and values, and identify conceptual risk factors.
We first conducted a Crazy 8’s session to brainstorm a set of ideas that meet user needs based on our analysis and reflection of past insights. We voted on different solutions and prioritized our needs based on those votes.
We found that the solutions addressed five need areas. We prioritized them in the order of most salient to least:
1. Have deeper interaction with the performance
2. Mimic physical space and interactions
3. Offer audience members more information if requested
4. Minimize distractions when watching
5. Offer paid events for users who want higher levels of engagement
Each team member used one unique need to generate three storyboards focused around the need with varying risk level (low-risk to high-risk idea). We then conducted the Speed Dating sessions where a user was shown all 15 storyboards and was asked to discuss their reaction to each solution with a focus on specific need.
Through these sessions, we were able to validate multiple user needs and find new design opportunities. We were also able to confront some common misunderstandings:
- People are more shy talking to strangers online vs in person — cites inorganic conversations and lack of social cues. We previously thought that people would be more open talking to strangers online.
- The physical space adds more to the in person theater experience than social interactions. We previously thought physical space and social interactions were equal in creating the unique in person theater experience.
- Chat interactions works better in the digital world compared to voice and video. We never entertained chat since we wanted to mimic real social interactions.
- Getting distracted seems to almost be inevitable with digital shows. We were previously thinking of ways to get rid of distractions rather than ideate solutions that work well with them.
Based on the insights gained from the Speed Dating sessions, our team voted on storyboards using dots to decide the direction to take our project.
Through dot voting and lengthy discussion, our group decided to pursue having a virtual lobby area prior to the show. We hoped to utilize this space do develop community, prepare the audience member for immersion, and allow the viewer have more control over their experience.
Solution
Our team decided to rapidly create a low-fidelity prototype on Figma to create our virtual lobby area. Our research has indicated that an overwhelming majority of our participants watch digital theater performances on their laptop. To best mimic the context and experience in which our users would use our solution, we decided to create digital prototypes in Figma that had dimensions of a standard laptop screen.
While we ideally would have wanted to create a paper prototype, we did not believe that it would be feasible at this time given the current pandemic circumstances. To mimic the benefits of paper prototypes, we time-boxed our creation of our low-fidelity prototype in Figma to emphasize creation and ideation over polish. Because the prototypes were so fast to make, iteration was easy and the unfinished look of our prototypes led to us receiving more critical feedback during testing sessions.
We conducted a final Think Aloud session with participants to gain the most insights about our initial prototype. From the sessions, we generated the following main findings:
- Wording informed different expectations than what the prototype presented. For example, “chat” did not clarify who would be on the other end.
- All viewers when back through the Lobby to see to their next task.
- Barrier to entry of Donate page is high, and it presents ambiguity. Donation page was intuitive, but lacked clarity on where the money would be going.
- The prototype provided interactions that emulated the physical experience.
We gained so much constructive feedback that we were able to put into our final iteration of our solution.
With our solution, attendees prime their experience with their first step into a virtual lobby. They utilize this time in anticipation to learn about the performance they are about to immerse themselves into through a digital program, chat with other attendees and representatives of the theater, and gain a deeper understanding of what the Kelly Strayhorn Theater is and stands for via upcoming events and workshops.
