Bring The Magic Home
A Service Concept Proposal for the 21st Century Universal Studios
Our new service proposes a new magic wand that can be used for interaction in the studio and extends the journey to home. Each wand has a unique RFID chip inside. Pairing the wand with the customer's account allows the wand to serve as a personal identity that interaction points can recognize in the studio.
Client
Universal Studios, Wizarding World
Duration
8 Weeks
Team
Wenjing Zhang
Yihui Wang
Shijie Luo
Mo Zhou
Role
Team Lead
Research
Service Mapping
Visualization
Our story started from a question:
How could AI (artificial intelligence) shape the future of theme parks?
We went through a collaborative path:
We propose an AI-based service concept:
Bring Visitors Back
Journey
Bring The Magic Home
App Design
Personalized Experience
Data Flows and AI
Process
01
Secondary Research
Knowledge Mapping
Starting from theme parks, we thought about how to implement AI into theme parks in different departments and made a knowledge map to gain a basic understanding of them.
Among all the secondary research results, we identify the personalization opportunity based on three parts of the system: 1. various visitors of Universal Studios, 2. multiple entertainment activities at Universal Studios, and 3. idealized and advertised experience.
02
Primary Research
Semantic Research
We conducted semantic research to figure out how visitors picture their current journey and ideal experience in the future. The words enriched our expectations about future design. 91.4% results are positive. People are expecting magic and an immersive experience.
Social Media Ethnology
Limited by our team size and experience, we did not have an overall idea of how the journey in Universal Studios looked. Thus, we watched over 50 video logs on social media, concluded their journeys case by case, and created a drafted journey map by collecting information from those vlogs. Social Media ethnography broke the limitation of our perception and enriched our understanding of the entire visiting journey.
In-Depth Interview and Current Journey Mapping
Team members watched over 50 Vlogs about Universal Studios and conducted a draft journey reflecting visitors’ actual experiences. Then we invited 6 participants who have Universal Studio experience to join us to map their current journeys, including the most exciting and frustrating part.
Insights
1. No single representative journey, but actions in different orders.
2. People love scenes restoring from the movie.
"It restored the plot of the movie."
"... immersive experience for me ..."
"... especially restored, just like the movie."
"... as a student from Hogwarts."
3. People are looking for more magic feelings and feel disappointed.
"... Spoiler ... There are many vlogs online ... "
"... there could be more interaction ... "
"It disappointed me. There were no surprises ..."
4. App is only for logistic use: payment, map, virtual line, ticket, and food ordering.
03
Co-Creation Workshop
Purpose
To evaluate the ideas generated from our research, we ran a workshop to gather feedback from visitors of Universal Studios.
Agenda
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5 Min - What are we doing now?
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15 Min - Visiting wizarding world together
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10 Min - Price our attractions
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15 Min - Rose, bud, thord
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15 Min - Let’s make it better together
Intro of our project, our research insights
A journey of our designs and current attractions
A price game showing participants' preference
Reasons for participants' preference
Ideation with workshop participants
Price Game
In the price game, every participant played the role of visitor. We guided them through their journey at Universal studios, introducing the attractions in posters, including our designs and several current attractions.
Since everyone had 20 Harry Potter dollars, they could decide how much money they were willing to spend on each attraction individually after the guided journey. Based on the price they gave, our team quickly identified which attractions were popular and did they like our designs.
In the following discussion, "rose, bud, sword," we gathered more information about everyone's preference.
Insights
10 Participants joined our workshop, priced each attraction, gave us reasons why and why not, and shared their inspiring thoughts from visitors' perspectives.
They like
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interactions in the park
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scenes restored from movies
They don't like
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too much phone usage
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ignored by employees
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waiting in a long line
Potentials
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battling with wands like characters
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surprises
Design
Metaverse of Universal Studios
Our new service proposes a new magic wand that can be used for interaction in the studio and extends the journey to your home.
Each wand has a unique RFID chip inside. Pairing your wand with the customer's account allows the wand to serve as a personal identity that interaction points can recognize in the studio.
The customer's account can collect all the magic footprints in the studio for customers who purchased this service. Meanwhile, there's are level system within the app, and the wand and app allow the customer to "practice the magic at home" (interaction game). Their level will go up as they practice the magic, which will lead to whole different interactions they visit the studio next time.
Extend Magic Journey To Home
The wand and app allow the customer to "practice the magic at home" (interaction game).
There is a level system within the app. The level will keep growing when customers finish their profiles and practice magic. The app always provides magic tutorials in the text before they start, and AR animation tutorials during the practice.
App
Set Up Profile
Explore Magic
Practice Magic
Practice Magic
Personalized Experience
To enhance the "magical" experience and surprise, our team utilize AI technology to create a personalized experience. Below is the AI framework we proposed. After the system collects the basic information, the system will transform the basic information into characteristics that the AI system can identify. Finally, the AI system will use these characteristics to provide personal experiences for different customers.
AI Framework
Data Flows
