The Experience Factory: an agile commando into the mountains
How a “commando” can co-design the new experience of a ski resort in three weeks.
In February 2018 we went to the Menuires, a ski resort in the French Alps to conduct with our partner X+M a three-day field study. Equipped with analysis grids (based on ethnographic analysis grids), cameras and ski gear, we surveyed the resort and its ski area from top to bottom.
After 130 hours of observation (approximately a hundred interviews with vacationers and mountain professionals) and the discovery of one of the most beautiful ski areas in Europe, we identified the first pain points and frustrations of an experience that we later described as fragmented. These were a lack of welcome for vacationers, confusing signage, lost skiers wandering for hours while waiting to get a key to their accommodation (and only being able to access it very late in the day) and a complicated departure. In short: an unpleasant and failed arrival and difficult access to rental units, thus condemning visitors to wander around in an unknown place.
We analyzed the facts with the client using an experience map, we found that vacationers’ experience is fragmented and that they do not understand the territory in which they come to spend their holidays. There are breaking points in different sequences of the timeline, particularly when arriving at the station, and also a misunderstanding of the station’s layout.
Based on these observations while respecting the resorts saying, “Friendly Menuires”, and the values it embodies, how could we reimagine an original and different experience? How could we create a fluid experience and make it work? But also, how could we engage people who are not used to working together in order to unite them around a shared vision?
This first phase of the field study was followed by a co-creation workshop bringing together all the station’s stakeholders (40 people). It led to the definition of the new Station Experience and 4 intervention issues:
- Visitors’ arrival at the bus station (implementation of a welcome guide + welcome script for greeters)
- Pedestrians strolling between neighborhoods (signage + light and sound staging of an underground tunnel)
- Inter-neighborhood travel by free shuttle bus
- Understanding the layout of the station which is composed of neighborhoods (Station plan)
In order to address these multiple and different subjects, we set up a new method: The Experience Factory, an agile commando in the mountains.
Experiment to make it happen
To turn the “dream experience” into reality, we decided to select a part of the current experience that could create a big impact without investing too much time and money.
As we all know, a good experience should start strong and end strong. It’s a matter of memory but also a matter of context: during the first day of their stay, newcomers experience a lot of stress in this particular ski resort. Whether because of the typology of the station, spread over several neighborhoods, the particular configuration of the bus terminal or the difficult conditions (weather or travel tiredness) in which they may arrive, it was an important issue to address first.
To ease the process and meet the resort objectives of building loyalty, we choose to focus on one target: A family who comes for the first time, by bus and that could get the worst experience (crying children, a lot of carriage without personal means of transport in the station and more).
Have strong impacts with few means
One of the first ideas of the Experience Factory was not to engage a lot of effort and money into huge projects but work on small contact points to improve the experience.
Here are some examples we implemented in just a few days: Welcoming newcomers at their arrival at the bus terminal with a welcome guide, helping them find and get to their rental unit thanks to the shuttle map, helping them discover their neighborhood with a specific map and navigate through the station on foot guided by pedestrian signs.
It seems to be really little things in the light of the station and its operation, but as information is a crucial aspect of discovering an unknown and more urban than you may think territory. That’s what gives the most impact with few means.
Collect user feedback even without a real prototype
As always at WeDigitalGarden, we tested our assumptions as early as possible. For that, we used several methods: Axe testing, card sorting, in-situ user tests with early prototypes, etc.
Here, we have done among others:
- Card sorting exercise with users to determine information organisation on the free shuttle map
- Indoor tests with blocs on a powerpoint to validate the information
- In-situ tests to validate the position and understanding of directional signs
These user tests have three purposes: to validate or invalidate our hypotheses as early as possible, to refine proposals and devices as quickly as possible, and above all, to bring our customers on board. This last point will be developed later on.
Create quickly with the means at hand
Another crucial aspect of the Experience Factory is what we call Experience Hacking.
Behind this aggressive sounding name is simply the use of frugal techniques and available resources to design and test our first assumptions and then bring the experience into life.
As the only purpose is to bring our ideas to life as quickly as possible without spending too much energy, materials or money to put it in the hands of users.
Amongst other things:
- We collaborated with the city’s technical services to set up the first versions of signage panels made with recycled materials,
- We installed the maps of the neighborhoods on mobile stands (usually used for temporary signage by tourism office),
- We used stickers to quickly add information and directions on elevators to test them before using more permanent materials.
Do it together to federate
With the experimentation part of the Experience Factory comes the collaboration part.
Ski school, Tourism Office, merchants, ski lifts operator… Each of all the actors is really good at what they are doing. But as we said earlier, the experience is not as good as it could be because it is fragmented: all the aspects of the experience that don’t fit into the actors’ scope are more difficult to handle.
But hopefully, it appeared that one of the strengths of Les Menuires is to make people and actors work together. Nothing would have been possible without this condition.
Bring a team on the field
Then, we were there to take care of this left zones and design the new experience. We were there to know the field, to create faster and get a chance to tests whatever we designed as much as possible.
We, two designers and a squad master, then decided to leave Paris for a time and be there one week by month for the first iteration of three months. One full week. A sprint (We get some inspiration from the agile methodology).
Every day, we worked Menuires, we ate Menuires, we slept Menuires, we dreamed Menuires. A sprint then where we could be totally focused on what we were doing, where we could be close to our customers and work with them. And it was a success thanks to a great welcome and team spirit from people there.
Mix up skills and knowledge
We just said that the goal of being on the field was to be immersed in the project.
But the objective was also to create an active force with different actors of the resort to maintain and spread what we were building. That’s why a big part of the Factory comes with a co- before a lot of work we did.
Co-observe, co-create, co-decide. Co- being the WDG team and the Les Menuires project team, but also the different activities of the station (again: Ski school, Tourism Office, merchants, ski lifts operator…). All the subjects covered followed the same process: observation, co-creation, design, testing and iteration.
Just as co-creation was present each time to draw on the ideas and knowledge of stakeholders, align and decide as quickly as possible, co-observing allowed us to gather as much information as possible from the beginning of each subject. An example: walking along pedestrian paths to decide on the location of signs is much more effective when you can immediately know which area of a building cannot be used because it belongs to a co-owned property but not to the town hall. Or that here there are so many meters of snow in winter, that the snow groomer goes down this road and that the sign should be placed a little further away.
Keep the team energised
Last but not least, having a team on the field, one week by months, working with people that have other things to do during the day is no easy work.
Then, again, we used the agile methodology and transposed it to our context. Every morning, at 8.30 pm, the project team and we had 15–30 minutes daily meeting where we explained what
we did the day before and what are we planning to do during the day. This allows us to keep the project team informed during our few phases of work alone as well as to organise the co-working times. And when questions arise, it still allows us to decide quickly. All this supported by the installation of a Kanban on the wall to visually monitor the progress of tasks on the various subjects et to be more interactive.
Finally, at the beginning of each sprint, a sprint planning is made to organise the upcoming sprint and a sprint review at the end of the week to present the progress of all the subjects and consider the next sprint.
A format that is still evolving
As we are writing this article, we finished the first iteration and did an observation weekend during the affluence peak to test our experiment in real conditions. A second iteration just started with the objective to extend our first signage prototypes to the whole resort and bring it into production.
We are stabilizing our method on the way and with another Experience Factory started earlier this year, that allows us to say: the Experience Factory is a really good format to create experiences that work without too much effort and embed stakeholders and actors around it. Les Menuires even received an award for all their work in improving the customer experience!
Before leaving, a quick wrap-up of what makes an Experience Factory:
- Start small,
- Test whenever you can,
- Use hacks,
- Bring everyone on the field,
- Mix up expertise,
- and keep the team energised.
