How can I obtain a ticket for a concert anonymously?

Initial situation

The "Ticket with Heart" initiative aims to offer an online platform where people in socially and financially difficult situations can obtain free event tickets. Three master's students from the OST University of Applied Sciences (Continuing Education MAS HICD) are investigating the implementation of this initiative as part of their master's thesis. They encountered the problem of how the "Ticket with Heart" could be offered in practice. For example, the question arose of how the individuals in need could order an admission ticket anonymously. The underlying hypothesis is that those affected would not want to disclose their personal information and current situation to a charitable platform or to event organizers. To find creative and innovative solutions, we at Infometis (Patrick Steiger and Stefan Böhni) were able to support the team with a design thinking workshop. Two employees from Ergon , the client, a project manager from the client, and two Infometis employees (Gabriela Meier and Matthias Aeschbacher) also participated.

What exactly is the problem?

Before solutions can be created and implemented, it is crucial in the design thinking process that all participants have a shared understanding. The three students shared their initial findings with the other participants, some of which were critically examined. The presented personas were then revised in two groups. Using the "Critical Item Diagram" (Figure 2), the critical functions and experiences that the solution should offer were identified. From this, the groups derived the "How Might We" questions. Surprisingly, both groups independently chose the same question: "How can I obtain a ticket for a concert anonymously?"

Creating solutions

It was important to us to spark creativity and broaden the range of possible solutions. For example, the workshop participants were encouraged to move beyond the idea of ​​a conventional admission ticket. To achieve this, we used the "Crazy-8"to generate as many suggestions as possible. We conducted a total of three ideation iterations. It was impressive to see the variety of shapes and materials the design thinkers used to create their prototypes. When the results were then released for testing, the other participants were able to immediately grasp the creator's core idea in most cases. After a brief feedback session on the individual approaches, we formed three groups, each of which further developed one idea.

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Testing solutions

Feedback from outsiders within the target group is a core principle of design thinking. For the workshop finale, we organized five test participants. After a short lunch break, the groups were given one hour to develop a testable prototype from their idea. Two groups chose to prepare a role-playing scenario in which the test participant had to take on the role of the affected person. The third group created a desktop walkthrough.

Individual test runs and the feedback from the test subjects were video recorded so that the three master's students could analyze the results later. It was fascinating to see how deeply the test subjects immersed themselves in their assigned roles. The collected feedback was correspondingly diverse and valuable.

At the end of the workshop, we jointly compiled the key insights. All participants were impressed by how many useful and valuable insights could be gained in just a few hours. They enjoyed learning about new tools and experiencing all phases of Design Thinking firsthand through this practical case study. Our highlight as workshop leaders was successfully engaging participants who were initially skeptical of Design Thinking. We discovered that even a short Design Thinking workshop (5 hours) can yield many useful results. The prerequisite for this is that a significant portion of the "understanding" phase must have taken place beforehand. Therefore, in this particular workshop, we were able to focus on ideation and experimentation.

In our view, a high energy level among all participants is the most important ingredient for a successful workshop. There was plenty of that on this day. It did take some effort, but in the end everyone was fulfilled and proud of their work.