Creating Engagement at Grand Park

Client

Grand Park and verynice were our clients for this project. This is the second part of the project phase where I joined one of the winning teams, Grand Games, to help them with the rest of the project.

Brief

How can we enhance the guest experience to encourage visitors to co-create the story of Grand Park so that they can have a slice of the park wherever they go?

Key Considerations:

• Guest experience ideally bridges the physical with the digital. The physical/analog aspect could include items with a physical presence in the park (i.e., story booth, signage, etc.), whereas digital includes platforms on web & mobile devices, but goes beyond social media.
• “Slices of the park” are media and cues that could be based on location, history, arts, music, culture, food, activism, health, sustainability, and partnerships. 
• The ideal solution would be a living, breathing, design that can be continuously updated (vs static page or documentary that only shows a specific snapshot in time).
• Curation and moderation policies will be important to ensure the safety of all users.

Role

I helped develop the research foundation, designed the survey and sent it to participants, and took over Grand Park’s Instagram for a day.

Competitive Analysis

We hypothesized that games in Grand Park would create unique Los Angeles experiences. 

The competitors clarified that idea by how they disrupted space so that users experience them in a different way.

Insights

Hosted Game Nights: Planned hosted games and events help users understand the rules, guide them through the game, and further other moments of play.
Extended Engagement: Large equipment attracts users, but extended engagement needs instruction or facilitation.
Games Bring New Perspectives: Game opportunities in public areas contextually and socially engage the space. It interrupts the conventional and employs a new perspective.

SME Interviews

We reached out to game designers, and cultural centers across Los Angeles.

Insights

Keep it Simple: Don’t over complicate it, add a summary with visuals at the top of game instructions
Engagement: Draw the players in by having a clear objective of how to play the game and establish clear emotional goals for the player
Cultural Games Have Similarities: Games from different cultures have similarities to common games

Journey Map

We designed a journey map to understand how a player would interact with Grand Games. 

Survey

Designed and sent out surveys to Facebook groups and sub Reddits. The purpose of the survey was to understand if people would like to learn about cultures through playing cultural related games.

We also conducted A/B testing with LA locals to discover what game instructions were the easiest to follow.

Insights

Outdoor Sports: Users’ preferred outdoor and sports games compared to other gaming activities.
‍Shared Experiences: LA locals shared their experiences through social media platforms.

Prototype

We decided to design a sign that is low cost and can be placed on top of tables, add games in other languages to be more inclusive, and use emojis since they are more universally understood than custom icons.

Insights

Signs on Pathways: Game signs needed to be placed closer to the pathway where people frequently travel because visitors were not looking at the tables.
Individual Competitiveness: One player tried multiple times to beat his own personal best at one of the games.
Easy Instructions: Users responded well to the game instructions simplicity and how easy the games were to learn.

Final Prototype

From our feedback from testing we decided to update our prototype to be displayed closer to the popular walkways throughout the park. Users are also able to take a slice of the park with them by adding QR codes for users to scan to allow users to learn more about the cultures that inspired the game.

Instagram Takeover

Before presenting our final prototype to the stakeholders we took the opportunity to take over Grand Park’s Instagram account for one day to gather more data and see how users responded to our prototype.

We asked questions to gather more information through stories. In addition, we also asked for feedback on our prototype. Also, we created games to see if we could still interact with locals through play without them necessarily being in the park.

Results

Over 6,000 people viewed the Instagram post

291 engaged with the Instagram Post

Website

We designed a website for stakeholders to view our concept and share with anyone else who may be of interest. There is a Gantt Chart and contingency plan on the website to show to stakeholders how this concept can be easily implemented as well as a budget plan.

View website

Project Proposal

We put together a complete project proposal to pass over to our client, Grand Park at the end of the project.

Read full project proposal

Feedback from Stakeholders

“So beautiful to see highlighted value of recreational activities that provide intercultural participatory opportunities” - - Gaby Hernandez

“Great job with the energy of it and it felt fun watching it" - Diaris Alexander

Connecting with the Community
‍Our concept merged well with the values of connecting to the community.
‍Strong Observations
‍We did great with observations and knowing where the signs have to be and picking up on the pathways

Flexible and supportive team environment. Having a project manager (Gabe) was very helpful to keep us on track with weekly deliverables using Slack and Notion. Everyone had a different schedule of availability due to outside school commitments. Next time I would have liked to be part of the design aspect of the project. I chose to focus on research, however that isn’t what I want to do in my career.