After a stressful week I needed to blow off some steam, so when my friend Mimi called and suggested I join her, her mother, and her 9-year-old daughter for a little bowling, I said yes. I figured bowling would be the perfect cure for my week; it had physical activity (but not too much, because, well, I can’t ever seem to make it to the gym @OnMyWaytotheGym), food, alcohol, and my friends. Half an hour later, I met them at Bowlero in Inglewood for a quick game.
I’m always on the lookout for good design (or bad), so as I entered the bowling alley, I took note of lots of great design choices. The spontaneous research I conducted with Mimi, and Ruthie (Mimi’s mom) indicated that all 3 of us appreciated the darkly lit cavernous environment decorated with dim red and blue lights. It hid the fact that we were wearing old sweat pants, no makeup and a few days worth of dirt in our hair. Josie, age 9, Mimi and Ruthie also enjoyed the really, really, really loud music (I did not, but I’m crumudgenly like that).
Josie said her favorite feature was the arcade, equiped with 20 or 30 video games, for which she suggested she needed $50. (Mimi gave $5).
Curious about the pain points of the bowling experience, I headed directly to the bar where I ordered a giant martini from the cute bartender adorned with a manbun while Mimi and Ruthie waited in a long line to reserve a lane and pick up shoes (long line… that’s a pain point).
At the bar, I asked the bowlers standing around me to relate their bowling experiences. All of them, from the young dating couple, to the family with 3 kids, to the party of 12 who were already drunk in line, agreed; lack of skill as a bowler is embarrassing and makes the experience less enjoyable.
I delved further…Several people mentioned that bowling feels like being on stage; your friends are behind you staring directly at your ass; the people occupying the neighboring lanes are watching you, you attempt to gracefully take 3 small steps and slide on the wood floor while
simultaneously swinging a ball the size of a Volkwagon Bug with SWAT team percision down a wooden alley as narrow as the toothpick in my martini.
Those I surveyed (We had to wait in that frickin’ line for 30 minutes.) reported that their anxiety over being on “stage” further deteriorated already inadequate capabilities.
Lack of bowling chops is something I can relate to, I have never bowled higher than a 78 point game. I frequently use the “raised on duckpins” excuse to justify my poor performance. Duckpin bowling, which is popular in the northeast, is played with smaller, fatter pins and wooden balls weighing about 3 pounds. (Alert: Ifound out they no longer make the balls from wood. Did I just give away my age?) Fortunately, no one in our foursome had ever heard of duckpins, so they believed me.
Fun historical fact: At the turn of the 20th century, Rubber Band Duckpin was popular. The fat pins were encircled with hard rubber bands, which caused them to fly around so erratically that participants were getting injured.
I discovered more cool Bowlerama design on our lane; there was a nifty kiosk right under the scoring monitor where we could order food and drinks (child’s burger, 2 large orders of fries, ceasar salad… another martini) and have it delivered to us right at the lane. They also automated the score keeping, and added the ability create avatars sporting your own face. Josie found it entertaining to make the rest of us look ridiculous.
Once Josie was done putting the finishing touches on an avatar of her auntie Chris (which resembled a one-eyed donkey) she took the first turn. I watched in amazement as she threw a curve ball that ended in a strike! I mean come on! The kid is 9!! It was incredible! I was next, and I felt the familiar anxiety about being on the “stage”, but sucked in my gut, broke a fingernail grabbing a ball and, after taking too many steps, slipped and flung the ball towards the gutter. I already had a list of extenuating circumstances I would use as an excuse going in my head;
martinis, greasy French fry fingers, shoes, when the ball slowly curved back towards the lane and knocked over 8 pins! I was in awe of my own skill!
Both Ruthie and Mimi were playing well, too. All of us seemed to have mastered the incredible curve ball resulting in the most incredible strikes and spares I’ve ever seen. I found new confidence, and was excited get up there and let other bowlers watch in envy as I hurled another curve ball into the pins. It was magic!
“This bowling alley is magical! I’ve never bowled this well,” I exclaimed to Mimi.
She looked at my quizzically, “You do realize the bumpers are up, don’t you?”
So much for my ego. I guess the dim neon lights had camouflaged the brown rubber bumpers that ran down either side of the alley. As a UX designer I had picked up a lot of info about the pain points of the bowling experience, but as life long prankster, I had one more trick up my sleeve. Using the geometry I learned in bars playing pool (I slept through high school math), I confidentially hurled the ball at exactly the right angle against the left side bumper about 2 feet in front of me. It bounced back and forth between the bumpers traveling all the way down the alley and struck the pins dead center for a perfect strike.
