[UX research] Improving the Eiffel Tower's visitor experience

I was given the great opportunity to work for the companies operating the Eiffel Tower.The objective was to make sure to provide visitors with the best possible experience when visiting the monument.

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This project happened over one month with a reduced team : two freelance designers working full time (one of which was me) and two expert senior designers to provide guidance punctualy. The project was divided in two equal parts of 2 weeks ; the first part was focused on user research (in situ observation, shadowing, historical research on the monument, benchmarking other monuments...) while the second part was focused on making recommandations based on our observations, and imaginating services and ways to make the experience better for visitors as well as staff while still answering to business constraints and objectives. Our recommandations split in two parts as well : what was needed to be done to make the experience as good as most monuments on practictal terms, and what was needed to make the experience unforgettable and delightful so people would remember their visit and what to share it with others.

As designers, this meant 2 things for us : identifying pain points to solve for people through their user journey, and imagining meaningful and unforgettable experiences for users to remember.

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We followed a pretty basic version of the Double Diamond design thinking process ; Discover (learn about the subject, the users, the problem), Define (make sure we are answering to the right problem, phrased the right way), Develop (ideate and imagine possible ways to answer these questions) and Deliver (prototype and test ideas). Given the time we hade and the scope of our mission within our client's project roadmap, we only mainly focused on the 2 first steps.

‍During this project, my teamate and I wrote interview scripts and used observation grids to do active and passive research — from observation to interviews with all the actors in this system (sponsors, staff, employees and of course visitors). Than we ideated around the main identified problems to make sure the visiting exprience was up to speed and met the expected level for a world-class monument such as the Eiffel Tower. We identified opportunities to improve the whole experience through crowd and flux management, commercial offers, identification and recognition of territories, informative content...). The other half of our recommandations was about new ways to improve the visitors' experience to create unique and delightful moments for all to enjoy at the Eiffel Tower.