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A Little User Experience Around the Holidays

January 14th, 2010

Information Architecture, Interaction Design, User Experience Design

As we end the year and our minds are preoccupied by the holidays I am once again reminded of how important web usability is and how it affects the bottom line everyday. The latest example came from an unlikely source: ballet. Not just any ballet production, though, but The Nutcracker. Let me explain:

For a year now I’ve wanted to take my 4 year old daughter to see The Nutcracker. She has a vague interest in ballet, and I hoped seeing it would encourage her further. Nutcracker performances in the Washington DC area occur a little earlier than expected, though, and I found myself scrambling for remaining seats even before feasting on Thanksgiving turkey. There are two venues for those who aren’t particular about the ballet company putting on the show: the Kennedy Center and the Warner Theater, and I soon found myself engrossed in their Web sites trying to complete a ticket purchase.

The Kennedy Center’s online ticket purchasing process reminds me of buying airline tickets: the steps are clearly indicated, you pick exactly the seats you want and before you know it you’ve spent a lot of money. Just kidding on that last one. In the same way that many Information Architects commonly break down processes, buying tickets on the site involves getting progressively more specific: first you select the performance, then a date when the performance is given, then the auditorium tier and finally the exact seats. The selections you make instantly update the total cost and, where applicable, progress you to the next step. I was able to go backward in the process to edit my selections, and when going too far back the site notified me that doing so would abandon the seats I’d selected. My favorite feature of all, though, is the inclusion of “camera” icons when selecting the seats – clicking one displays an image of what the view of the stage will be like from that area of the auditorium.

The Warner Theater’s online ticket sales are handled by LiveNation, an owner and operator of over 80 performance venues worldwide. When shopping for Nutcracker tickets on LiveNation I took this into account, and understood that the experience wouldn’t be as tailored to a single venue (which it wasn’t – the Warner is a historic venue and none of its personality came through). The site also provides two ways of buying: “Select by Best Available” and “Click and Pick Seat Map”. The “Select by Best Available” tab is selected by default, and I actually didn’t see the seat map option until circling back to write this post. I was wary of what “best available” meant – best for whom? There was no indication of what my view of the stage would be like, so there was no way to verify. The site expected me to select a price tier and roll the dice. Also, the ability to enter a promotion is done by selecting one from a list, not by submitting a code as on most other retail sites. In this case there was a 20% off promotion listed that I could not book, which was a disappointment.

The “Click and Pick Seat Map” feature, which should be the default because of its more intuitive experience, did not solve all the problems. When launching the seat picker, I had to install a plug-in which took several minutes, and then required me to restart my browser. The straw breaking the camel’s back, though, was the large, ticking timer that gave me less than 11 minutes to enter all of my information and complete the purchase. I understand that tickets can’t be held for long, but this came across as way too pushy.

Have you figured out which production we saw? Yes, the Kennedy Center got my hard-earned greenbacks at least partially because its Web site gave me the greatest confidence in what I was purchasing and didn’t feel like a ticket clearinghouse. To top it off the production was wonderful, our view of the stage exactly as represented in the purchase process and most importantly my family enjoyed the entire evening. I too had a great experience, but mine started with a URL.