Augmenting the Theatre Experience with Tech to make a performance more Accessible
Mid February, I got an email asking if it would be possible to create an app for a dance performance happening in 2 and a half weeks. When I received this email, I was studying for my midterm and was complaining to one of my friends how I didn’t have enough time to work on my startup. I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to take on the project because of all the responsibilities I had — but I responded just out of curiosity.
Sounds exciting, it depends on what the specifications of the app are, it’s certainly possible to finish something simple under a month. Can I get more details of what you guys want from the app?
One of my friends who was an intern at the Heidi Latsky Dance Company had recommended me to her team as they were planning to make an app for their show. The show, D.I.S.P.L.A.Y.E.D. was happenning on March 8th at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.
From the email exchanges, I realized that the main objective of the app was to provide audio descriptions for the visually impaired. And also offer other functionality such as access to the program, description of the show, biographies of the dancers, social media, etc. So the day before my meeting with them, I decided to spend a few minutes, making mockups of different concepts I had in mind.
The next day, I met with the team at Baruch Performing Arts Centre to talk in detail about what they wanted. I showed them the mockups, asked them a few questions and we also geeked out about augmented reality and using other cool technology for future performances. I was definitely intrigued by how one of my creations would not only help people have a better experience but would be a part of the performance itself. I had never worked on a project like this before. I was really tempted to take on the project and build something amazing. On the way back from the meeting, I started calculating the amount of work it would take and realized that the app was realtively simple and easy to make. And I would have more freedom to play around with the aesthetics and other cool features. If I could somehow manage my time, stay up for a few nights and work really hard. I would be able to pull this off and be proud of contributing to a movement that was pushing the boundaries and reinventing what art and performance meant.
So I decided to take on the project.
I had about 2 and a half weeks to design and build an entire app. Due to the short amount of time, a lot of design choices had to be made based on intuition and personal experience, rather than rigourous testing and user feedback.
One of the things that I took into consideration was that the app was mostly going to be used during the performance at the location of the performance. This meant that the environment was going to be in a dark, low-lit setting. This is why I mostly chose dark backgrounds and white text. The black background absorbs all the light from the white text, reduce scattering and make the words more distinguishable in the low light. It also eliminates the annoyance of looking at a bright white screen in a dark room.
I wanted the app to replicate a magazine or a paper pamphlet. Replicating real world elements in digital is always something that I strive to do in my designs. So I decided to place the menu on the left bottom corner, and used plain text for buttons. I also wanted the button for the audio description to stand out, which is why I moved it to the top of the screen, and set the color to red. I also added a translucent image of one of the dancers as the background image.
The audio player was the main feature of the app, I started imagining it as a walkman, where users would hit a play button and also had options to fast-forward, rewind, and manipulate the audio. Although this was an interesting concept, I wanted the audio player to be as simple as it could possibly be. What if, all the user had to do was check-in at the performance and the audio descriptions would automatically sync with what was happening at the performance at that exact moment? Keeping this in mind, I created the audio player to automatically play audio when the audio-screen was opened and stop when the screen was closed. The player also had the ability to play in the background if the user decided to lock their screen and place their phones in their pockets. Which is something I would have done as a user. I wasn’t planning on implementing the auto sync feature due to time constraints, so I added a restart button which allowed the user to start the audio all over again if they accidentally started playing the audio before the performance began.
I also used Page View Controllers to setup the “program” and “about” pages. All the links to the websites and social media were setup in the “more” section with links that would exit the app and open the user’s default web browser. I have to say I was relatively satisfied with the final result.
Here’s a video of me using the app,
Working with the Heidi Latsky Dance company was an amazing experience and as a creative, I really enjoy working with artists. The performances were mind blowing and incredibly stimulating. I was also invited to watch the rehearsals before the main performance, and I have to say I was completely immersed in every single performance. I’m really glad I ended up working on this project.
Here are some pictures of the opening night,
