Five things immersive theatre can teach you as a product manager
How an obsession with Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man reminded me to love my users and sweat the details.
Just over a year ago, I fell in love. It was with a dark world of faded Hollywood glamour and broken dreams, captured in intricate detail inside an old sorting office in Paddington.
For anyone who visited, you’ll know I’m talking about Temple Studios. The immersive theatrical world created by Punchdrunk in their (now closed) production, The Drowned Man.
I lost myself in that world for hours upon hours. Some may say it became an obsession. I won’t tell you how many times I actually went to the show… but some of those people might have been on to something.
Since it closed, I’ve discovered just how much immersive, or interactive, or call-it-what-you-want, theatre is out there (I needed something to fill the hole, okay?).
I’ve been chased by zombies through East London and taken part in a bank heist. I’ve been down the rabbit hole into a hospital haunted by Lewis Carroll. I’ve followed the Capulets and Montagues as they danced around the streets of Southwark. I’ve spent a night in Balfron Tower, interrupted by visitations from Macbeth and the ghosts of Duncan and Banquo.
It’s all theatre. But when you’re part of the set, or part of the action — a character in your own right — these experiences can become incredibly powerful.
There’s an opportunity to try on new versions of yourself in a way that is, ultimately, safe. These shows evoke very real feelings and reactions, whilst allowing you to experience things you wouldn’t outside of these spaces.
There’s something about being the head-over-heels-in-love-with-something edge case, that helps you remember what can make something loveable in the first place.
So, with that in mind, here’s a few things I’ve been thinking about on these adventures that I can relate to the world of making products.
1. Love your audience
This is so obvious that it barely deserves a mention, but one of the performers in The Drowned Man said this at a pre-show talk, and my heart leapt. It’s what we try to do every day when making stuff on the Internet — but something that can be easy to forget.
In theatre it may be ensuring everyone can see, that you don’t accidentally hit them in the face, and that you can give them a memorable, personal experience.
For me “love your audience” is a constant. It fuels every decision, and makes me ask questions at every step. “What’s this person trying to do?”, “How can we make it easier for them?”, “How will this affect them?”, “How can it improve their life?”.
And it’s a reminder to never call them idiots for not being able to use the products that we designed.
2. Detail that delights
Immersive theatre where you can explore an entire set, open drawers and rifle through paperwork, doesn’t work if you forget the details. The best productions make it easy to suspend your disbelief, and don’t mind the time spent adding tiny things that perhaps only one person will ever find.
Whilst we build products, we spend a lot of time thinking about the things that benefit everyone — but this reminds me how important those little touches that will bring a smile to a user’s face are. Those tiny things that make an app more tactile or push someone from thinking something is useful, to truly loving it.
People are going to get grubby exploring the things we make, let’s try to make it joyful, rather than letting things slip at the edges.
3. Give people ownership
If you get an entire story in one go, you probably don’t need to keep going back. Leaving something open to interpretation encourages those with inquiring minds to dig deeper, to talk to their friends, to discuss and deliberate (which is why so many people went to see The Drowned Man again, and again, and again).
Whilst we probably don’t want to make digital services that are quite so perplexing; there’s a lot to be said for making things that can be moulded to fit a person’s needs. The things we make should be compellingly personal and give people room to experiment. We need to add those magical touches that get someone thinking, or talking, or raving about the shape this thing has taken in their own lives.
4. Playful prototyping
In a world where we’re constantly talking to the people that use our products, our testing can fall into the same patterns. In-depth interviews, paper prototypes, fancier prototypes — whatever medium we make as prompts, we’re often in an office-like space, and rarely where the product is meant to be used.
What can we learn from these fake worlds about making our testing feel more real? It’s not always practical to go to where people are, but can’t we be better at setting the scene? I’m fascinated by what happens if we allow room for play and ‘set dressing’, maybe it gets us closer to more truthful behaviour and useful insight.
5. An exercise in empathy
Ultimately, all of these things, and I guess the reason I love both immersive theatre and making products, come down to being able to explore our own empathy. Following a single character around and getting wrapped up in their story for an hour is a sure-fire way to start thinking more about them than yourself.
Likewise, how does my behaviour affect the other audience members around me? We make these shared experiences work with consideration; tiny gestures fuelled by understanding.
Growing our ability to understand other people’s behaviour and motivations, even if we do so through exploring fictional worlds, can only be a valuable exercise when it comes to building products that people love.
