The scope of the project is to create awareness about Aalborg Slotsteater and their play, and how they differ from the other theater experiences one can get in Aalborg and surrounding cities. Especially focusing on the experience of the Monastery garden opening up for the first time in 500 years and that the play will take place in the Garden itself.
The focus will be on trying to include the younger audience which is the primary target group (that Aalborgslotsteater is having most trouble with engaging). The argumentation for this decision is that the senior audience is already interested in the play and will attend the play without further advertising. The senior audience therefore is categorized as the secondary target group.
By focusing on the younger audience it opens up more opportunities to implement technologies in the experience. By only focusing on the senior audience the use of technology would be very limited.
Members of the team:
Elias Nomani, Dany Huynh, Alberte Husted Echers, Henrik Rohwer Dahl Gamborg, Marco Martinelli and Sofie Hansen
Concept video – Quiz Quest
The Design Process
Day 1
The members of the group introduced each other and did some team building. Later we were introduced to the case partner from Aalborg Slotsteater.
Day 2 and Day 3
Methods: Observation (Experience Matrix), semi-structured interviews – Jobs-to-be-done, Personas, desktop research
Wednesday: The plan is to analyze the physical space around the museum and the Monastery where the play will take place in 2021, using a method called “Experience Matrixs”, in order to get an idea of how the atmosphere is and how it can affect the experience.
Additionally, we will also do some depth data collection through interviews. The purpose of the interviews is to get a general impression of people’s opinion towards the experience of going to the theater. Therefore we will not target a specific user group to interview at this time, but to get a general impression and maybe get some specific patterns from different user groups.Who to interview:
Who to interview:
- People who go to the theater
- People who dont go to the theater
Desktop data: Popularity within age groups, current solutions.
To gather some information about the topic, we did some desktop data collection to answer some questions. Some of these questions were, what the popularity of the theatre between age groups was, and what other current solutions are in use.
Target Group:
Primary: Everyone
Secondary: Young people
Observation – Experience Matrix
Day 4
Material storytelling
Observations:
- A stage, someone watching. A factory.
- The audience can reflect upon themselves in the mirror on the stage (the play).
- The surroundings of the play: The monestary, the budolfi church, C.W Obels plads, “the reality”
- The audience is holding the playbill and watching the stage.
- The cellphone is placed in the middle between the play and the audience (how to implement technology in the experience)
- The handcuffs show the old factory workers tie to the old factory.
- Ludo piece is the moderator – Martin
- Museum is fossilized and caged in from the rest of the storytelling.
Interpretation:
- Museum is not part of the play – they are caged in.
- Now: The play and the audience is not at the center of the experience – they are neatly separated.
- C. W. Obel’s Plads is not included in the design of the play.
- The history and information for the play should reach the audience in another way than through the playbill. The old factory site and the museum is right next to the site of the performance.
Day 5
Coredesign – Innovation tracks
Innovation track 1 – Information in focus
The most important thing here is to get the information / story out to the audience before the performance. This must be done through an experience that should preferably be interactive and possibly performative.
Innovation track 2 – Performative in focus
The performative is the main focus, and through the performance we will share the story through an immersive experience that will help the audience to create empathy for the characters before the performance.
Innovation track 3 – Engagement in focus
The audience must be involved in the story through a social and interactive experience before the performance
The Choosen one
After the meeting with Director Martin Schwab we came to the conclusion that the core design will focus on these values: Informative, Performative, Interactive and social engagement.
- Martin thinks the work is fantastic – Martin likes the idea of the solution being an interactive experience before the play.
The information part could be a good introduction as an introduction for the play – to get the audience engaged before the play. - Attempt a split between information in focus and the play in focus.
- The connection between information and the play
- Martin thinks that most of the “layers” are inter-connected, but information should be the ultimate focus.
- Audience should be able to enjoy the play as a stand-alone thing, and the information should be something the audience can choose to get if they select to do so.
Day 5
How Might We Questions:
Ideation framework:
- Walkthrough:
To make it informative there will be some kind of storytelling, used with audio, possibly smell, or the possibility of QR codes. The audience will be taken on a tour, or go on one that is pre-planned for them, so that they can discover different information about the history of the old tobacco factory and the relationship between the workers. Between stations, voting stations could be found, to incite conversation with other audience members.
2. Gamification + Walkthrough
So here gamification could be selective – The tour includes objects that the audience has to bring out to different spots on the tour, or includes objects or cards that the audience has to collect to complete the story of the workers of the old tobacco factory. The tour almost becomes a treasure hunt.
3. Walkthrough + pre-performative
The actors take the audience on a tour, in which there are different “stations” in which the actors play out scenes from the life of a tobacco factory worker. They address the audience as workers on their first day, and take them into the world of tobacco – showing them the tobacco leaves and making them smell it. Perhaps even encouraging them to roll a cigar. There can be pre-planted speakers that play sounds at the “stations”.
Along these sub-headings you hand-in the deliverables: plan for and results of empirical work, material storytelling/affinity diagram, core design resume, and the how might we questions for your reframed design concepts.
Sketches of the concept
Videosketch 1 – Gamification
Describtion: This video is about the gamification and the walkthrough aspect of a solution. ‘The solution is about a hunting game where the participant has to collect different artefacts in order to make a cigar. These artefacts are represented by a card. Each card includes the name of the artefact and the riddle on the backside. In order to find all the ‘cards’ the participant have to solve the riddle on each card to get to the next location. At every location where the card happens to be, the actor standing there will explain some type of historical information to the participant. The last card, also the fourth card will be at the garden where the participant can get a souvenir for completing the game.’
The concept was visualized through storyboard and brainstorming different ideas. The concept was also visualized through drafts and audio to get idea of what it could look like.
Videosketch 2 – Walk through
Describtion: This concept focus on an walk through history using headphones. The main focus here is that the audience with get information about the history leading to the play. Audience will first meet up at the museum get a headset and playbill where a map will be of the different spot they can go to. When they come to the stop (the stops can på visualized by pictures, actors etc) a prerecorded audio will begin in there headphone. They will follow the stops and end up in the monsestary garden, where they play will be.
The concept is visualized with drawing and a form of “stop motion” tecnic with voiceover.
Videosketch 3 – Walk through + prepormative
Description: The idea of the concept, was to remove the need for reading the playbill. The reading of the playbill was seen as an anti-social act, and we found that most people go to the theater as a social experience. In an attempt to further the social interaction, we wanted to add a series of question posts. These posts should have provocative questions which would incite discussion between the audience members. Through this, we hoped to enhance the social aspect of the theater visit.
The concept was visualized through drawing with a mouse on a computer within the software “Miro”, screen captures were then added into a video in Adobe Premiere, where a voice over was recorded.
That’s all folks…!