Studio Spring 2022
How might we improve the customer journey for people attending Dallas Mavericks home games?
The Dallas Mavericks, often referred to as the Mavs, are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas, Texas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and play their home games at the American Airlines Center in Downtown Dallas. The teams first had to establish what it meant to improve the customer journey and defined the “customer journey” as everything that happens before a customer’s ticket is scanned at the arena, specifically focusing on traffic, parking, and congestion.
TEAM ONE: 3 & D
Prototype: First Fans Happy Hour
Emily Hughes Armour | Jessica Godwin | JT Ringer
First Fans Happy Hour is a program to incentivize early arrival, and therefore alleviate congestion, by discounting select AAC concessions by 50 percent during the hour before tipoff.
PROJECT OVERVIEW & HYPOTHESIS
After extensive secondary research, the design team conducted field research at seven home games. After reviewing all of the data they collected: the customer survey, data scraping Google reviews, observing the lines, subject matter expert interviews, and talking to fans at the arena, the design team learned three important factors that informed their hypothesis. First, they learned that arrivals at the arena are very unevenly distributed. Second, results from their fan survey taught the design team that Mavs fans are unhappy about congestion and concessions pricing. Finally, after speaking to fans directly, the design team learned that some fans can be enticed to arrive earlier if offered an incentive.
These insights guided the design team to their hypothesis that they might increase early arrivals by offering fans the right incentive.
PROTOTYPE
The inaugural prototype launched on April 18, 2022 during the first round of the NBA Playoffs. The game started at 7:30 pm, so the AAC doors opened at 6 pm, with the First Fans Happy Hour running from 6-7 pm. The happy hour offer was advertised as $5 domestic drafts at all concessions, restaurants, and bars throughout the AAC.
PROPOSAL
Based on the findings from the prototype, the design team believes that the right offer can incentivize fans to arrive earlier to home games. The right happy hour offer is one that is compelling enough to cause customers to change their behavior. Looking to the future, the design team has considered how First Fans Happy Hour might change and/or scale. The First Fans Happy Hour could become a starting point for themed promotions or events, and these could be themed to tie with game theme nights or focused on particular demographics, such as families. Another factor to consider could be how technology can be utilized in conjunction with First Fans Happy Hour to engage game attendees further and personalize the experience for each person.
KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES IDENTIFIED
- Time-Constrained – The design team proposes allowing for an unlimited number of game attendees to participate but for a limited time before tipoff, which aligns with the goal of enticing early arrival.
- Easily Redeemed – The design team proposes a simple offer redemption process at the maximum number of redemption locations to ease the customer experience.
- Widely Desirable and Valuable – The design team believes that offering a benefit with a high perceived value for a large number of people could encourage long-term adoption.
- Effectively Communicated – The design team believes that there is an excellent opportunity to set expectations and build excitement through clear communication leading up to First Fans Happy Hour.
TEAM TWO: Ally-Oop
Prototype: Path to Victory
Emma Goff | Christina Hahn | Alain Mota
Path to Victory is a plan to increase DART light rail ridership to Victory Station at the AAC by reducing ambiguity for riders and incentivizing their transportation choice.
PROJECT OVERVIEW & HYPOTHESIS
As fans travel downtown to cheer on the Mavs, they regularly encounter a major pain point: traffic and entry congestion. Based on the results of customer experience surveys shared by the client, online reviews of the AAC, and user interviews of Dallas Mavs fans, team Ally-Oop collected the insight that some attendees may be willing to tolerate that stressful experience enough to return for future games, but the current arrival and entry journey is far from an excellent—let alone a fun or memorable— experience. The team recognized the potential benefits regarding cost, ease of use, and subsequent decongestion of car traffic by increasing DART ridership. Currently, the space between Victory Station and the AAC is often an area of friction and confusion for guests. The area is not treated as part of Mavs territory, and as a result, guests are unguided as they try to make their way home. Attracting more people to the intermediate area and making it feel like part of the Mavs game day experience, something familiar to guests, might increase their sense of safety near the station. In the immediate future, activating the space might draw attention to the station and improve the experience for guests already utilizing DART.
PROTOTYPE
The design team used an incentive of $5 “Mavs Cash” to thank riders and promote arriving by train as a viable way to get to the game. The Dallas Mavs provided the “Mavs Cash”, printed paper vouchers, that could be redeemed inside of the AAC for a total amount of $5. The team also designed signs to promote the voucher distribution event to guests at their arrival to Victory Station. They created interaction opportunities by designing trainspecific wayfinding and bringing displays to create photo opportunities at the space. They also facilitated human interaction by deploying a team of volunteers to hand out Mavs Cash and announce the promotion via megaphone. Finally, they collaborated with the Mavs team to deploy communications through different communication platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and email.
KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES IDENTIFIED
- “Nudging” Long-Term Social Behavior – The team tested an incentive to encourage DART ridership by providing the users with $5.00 Mavs Cash for food and drink redeemable only available to the users of the DART train. For future use cases, the team recommended providing immersive sensory experiences and social interaction opportunities to further incentivize guests to occupy the Victory Station area, and thereby gain further familiarity with the existence of a DART station near the AAC.
- Sensory Elements Encourage Immersive Experiences – Ally-Oop’s design sought to create a spatial-sensory experience that activated the space. Through their mock designs and plans for the space for user interaction, they planned for game attendees to interact with passive displays that would be displayed at the space between Victory Station and the AAC west entrance. The design principle of immersion through perceptual stimulation was applied during the deployment of their prototype.
- Simplification and Repetition Improve Wayfinding – The team’s research process surfaced an opportunity to improve the experience of utilizing the DART train to get to and leave the AAC. By creating a diagram that reduces the elements to the colors and shapes of the routes and only including benchmark terminals, users would be able to determine which train they were supposed to board and where the train was arriving. Simplicity was also a part of the text choices of the poster.
- Accessibility is the Key to Universal Usability – The group intentionally focused on improving the experience of taking public transportation, which is financially more accessible to the general public than other modes of transportation. They sought to improve the accessibility of the Victory Station area and DART as a transportation option by addressing the social and psychological aspects of risk aversion towards public transportation spaces and clarifying any informational confusion.
