Piecing Together Success:
How Puzzle Hunts Boost
Visibility for Small Sponsors
Ciclavia is one of the most popular bicycling/movement events for LA, massive number of patrons come to participate in these events. No matter if they walk, bike, skate, or board, there is room for them to express themselves and get to know the community around them. This is also a place for small businesses to support and get visible attention from all kinds of patrons, and yet it remains a challenging task for all small sponsors. Patrons have no way of knowing about the sponsors because there’s no way to stop and hold a conversation. However, what if there were a simple game that could spark conversations and encourage innovative thinking? In search of fresh ideas to support their fellow small sponsors, Ciclavia introduced a challenge that inspired us and produced impressive outcomes.
Client: Ciclavia • Duration: 3 months • My Role: Project Manager, Physical System Designer, Video Editor
This project was made during my academic years. The companies and people are real places, while this was done within IXD at Santa Monica College.
Problem
Create a focus on small sponsors within the events that can make their spaces look more dynamic and interesting.
Insights
- Most people tend to speed past the sponsor booths while participating in Ciclavia
- With everyone speeding past, this makes it difficult for sponsors and partners to share with the community their outreach and provide more insights into the projects they are creating.
- A lot of people didn't know where the sponsor booths are and how to interact with them.
Solution
A Ciclavia Puzzle hunt focusing on small sponsors as a way to break the ice and gather information
Research
The first interviews given were for Expert/Sponsors who have successfully gathered attention and focus at Ciclavia events. The way this was achieved was through booth designs and interesting relations to the community around them.
Insights
- It is important to know a neighborhood's history and what already exists there and to involve the community in the design process when building upon it.
- Art is a great tool to communicate, engage, and involve the community to express emotions and ideas.
"Overall, when approaching design, you have to understand what exists before you build anything upon it."
• Christopher Locke
The best way to have a successful booth is to start by asking yourself why you are having the booth; then select 3 goals."
• Kaithlyn Soares
Observations and Surveys
To get a grasp of how a Ciclavia event works before, during, and after we attend a Ciclavia event on Oct 9th, 2022. This gave us a look at unique interactions with sponsors and how patrons ride, skate, and enjoy themselves within the event. We also gave out surveys to people passing by, as we acted as sponsors too with our own booth. The action of getting attention was both tedious and difficult, but we received a large number of entries.
Insights
- Interactivity Creates Engagement: Several booths had fun games or photo booths within it to make people stop by and interact with the sponsors and activities.
- QR Codes Actively Engage People: QR codes were used everywhere to share more information with people when there wasn't another way. This creates a simple sharing of information without it being time-consuming or in the way.
- People love free stuff: Talking to sponsors, we found out that most of the free swag was going fast, and it was one of the main draws for getting engagement.
- 76% attended the event in a group
- The top wish for sponsor booths was to have snacks and free swag
- 37% had been to a Ciclavia event before
- Music, fun, and food were the most anticipated forward of the event
How Might We and 3 goals
With enough information collected, we decided to focus on three main points to create our concept. The three main points were interaction, exploration, and free, which led to a How Might We that could place our product brainstorming into action:
How might we
• create a helpful interaction for Ciclavia sponsors?
Process
As research came to a close, it was time to brainstorm useful products for small sponsors. And the two main products were placed into concepts:
Onboarding Kit •
A kit to help new booths understand what they can do within their section, how to promote their booth, sites to buy swag, good practices, and much more. It would make the process easier for new booths and have a guide on what to do next, without feeling overwhelmed.
Collectible Puzzle •
Relying more on the fun interaction, a collectible puzzle would raise interest in smaller booths as well as create a fun game out of it, too. Every piece of the puzzle could go to different sponsors, and patrons must collect each piece to make the puzzle full again. This would make it easier for sponsors to explain what they do and how they could help patrons.
The stakeholders enjoyed the idea of a collectible puzzle and wanted us to test this product at their upcoming Ciclavia event happening in the south of LA. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, and we accepted to take it on!
Prototype
To understand the scale and how big the puzzle itself needed to be, a few prototypes were created to gather a sense of simplicity and how mobile it could be. This led the team to agree that the puzzle can be no more than 9 pieces and have the shape of a square that is 5 inches on every side. This size and shape would be easier and less likely to lose when collecting each piece.
The puzzle hunt event would be at nine booths, as each booth had the same piece of the puzzle within a bag. Once a patron came in, the sponsor could explain whatever they wanted to them and give them the puzzle piece. Once the patron visited each spot at the end, they would have a complete puzzle that showed them artwork of South LA with landmarks and much more.
Having both the physical puzzle and puzzle hunt event planned out, we needed to find a company willing to create this puzzle.
In comes PBL
Final Creation
PBL is a program on the Santa Monica College Campus that aids senior high school students with hands-on projects they would like to pursue. With a bit more knowledge in engineering, these seniors are more equipped to make a better impression on colleges or jobs.
Having two seniors work on bringing these puzzles to life, they were able to create 113 puzzles for us within a week. That was 1,017 single pieces that could all be used to make this puzzle hunt extraordinary. To this day, we still thank both students and their program leader, Jean, for the fantastic output they did for us.
Results
Once the South LA Ciclavia Event was underway, the puzzles were a big hit, and most pieces were already collected. It took two hours before there were no more puzzles to collect, which means the puzzle hunt was a success. We received great feedback as most people loved the puzzle hunt, found it fun to talk to these sponsors, and found more within their community. The stakeholders would like to create more puzzle hunt events in the future and see if they can gather more whole puzzles each time.
Conclusion
This whole project was a giant success, and I enjoyed working with my team to bring an excitement I haven't seen before. Bringing a large amount of whole puzzles and adding an AR code to give the puzzles a digital touch would be further steps we would take in the future.
Noeo ©
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