Connecting with Visitors Through Research
When you think of demographics, surveys, and focus groups, do you think of empathy in design? While data might sound like something you put on a bar graph, conducting thorough research about visitors helps us better understand the people we are designing for. It allows us to gather valuable insights into audience behaviors, enabling us to create more empathetic and user-centered designs.
“We’re designing for the attraction’s visitors—those passionate about learning, exploring, and creating memories. Visitor research opens the door to empathy, connecting us to the visitors, transcending assumptions and biases, and igniting an understanding of their needs, desires, and struggles. Embracing audience research allows us to step into the shoes of our visitors and design spaces that can make a meaningful impact in their lives,” said Mike Konzen, CEO of PGAV Destinations.
Visitor research can:
Determine who’s visiting and why.
Uncover the needs, desires, and pain points of our visitors.
Learn the visitor’s level of satisfaction and how we can meet or exceed their expectations.
Provide context to how and why visitors are coming to the attraction and interacting with it.
Allow us to experience the attraction the way the visitors do.
Help identify patterns and trends, allowing us to plan, budget, and prioritize projects.
By learning and understanding motivations, habits, and preferences, we can implement ideas to make an attraction more successful. How do we do that? There are various methods, including surveys, focus groups, and observation.
Surveys: Conducting surveys with attraction visitors provides insights into their behavior and preferences. Survey data can give a glimpse into preferences like pre-planning habits, the amount of digital technology desired, and dining choices.
Analyze visitation data: Determining a target audience helps guide the design of new projects and find ways to connect to the guests through their interests, needs, and motivations. Demographic data, including age, race, and whether they are local or tourists, can inform choices on things like height restrictions, restrooms, and what accessibility accommodations will be the most useful.
Focus group/consumer testing: After developing an idea, it is shared with a focus group to better understand a potential visitor's perspective before further development of the design. Including out-of-the-box ideas can help determine if the market will embrace it.
Visitor tracking/observation: Observing visitors in person allows designers to understand the attraction experience better and capture valuable insight into real-time visitor engagement, needs, and preferences.
Let’s dig a little deeper into visitor observation.
Through in-person visitor observation, we can learn how they interact with the attraction, what they find interesting, and how they move through a space. It allows us to observe and capture unsolicited comments and gather real input. Being on-site provides a broader perspective as we watch how different groups react to the environment.
By actively watching how visitors interact with the attraction, we can identify captivating elements that we may want to emphasize or address any issues that need improvement. “Field visits play a crucial role in validating what grabs people's attention and identifying consistent patterns,” Josh Rodriguez, PGAV Project Architect, said. Ultimately, in-person research offers a way to gauge what engages different groups. For example, children might be engaged while the adults walk past.
“By witnessing operations in person, we’re able to see how things truly function, which helps avoid oversights like neglecting to allocate enough seating to accommodate mobile food orders along with walk-up guests. It opens our eyes to perspectives we may not have considered before, such as the challenges faced by wheelchair or ECV users in navigating the attraction,” Rodriguez commented. Challenges, including bottlenecks or confusing signage, can be improved to enhance visitor satisfaction.
Rodriguez explained, “When conducting visitor research, you’re trying to empathize with the visitors. Understanding their experience enables us to create attractions that cater to their needs, concerns, motivations, preferences, and emotional connections.”
Reinvention is more fun with friends. Got a topic you want to see on Destinology?
Email us at destinology@pgav.com or start a conversation on Facebook, Twitter on LinkedIn.
Tap the buttons below.