Crowd control at City Hall

Crowd control at City Hall

Tourists are disturbing the peace at City Hall

City Hall attracts thousands of international tourists each year, especially during the peak season in July and August when approximately 80,000 visitors arrive. It serves as a public workplace while also being open to the general public for tours of the tower and other activities.

Elevating the City Hall Experience

To cultivate a desired behavior, our approach is about providing tourists with a clear sense of purpose from the beginning of their visit. The solution focuses on enhancing signage, providing concise information about their location and available options, and offering self-guided tours in the form of a brochure. Following the philosophy of renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl, we "invite" tourists to explore City Hall.

A Novel Approach to Visitor Management

User testing demonstrated that the concept had a significant positive impact. Tourists quickly understood that they were visiting City Hall. The greeting stand at the entrance acted like sticky tape, attracting attention. It provided basic information at a glance and held brochures for the tour. The self-guided tours functioned as a crowd control mechanism that successfully changed behavior by adding value to the visits. This, in turn, created a better work environment for the staff by ensuring that tourists stayed in designated areas.

A deepdive into the process

I've made a quick summary of the process to give and idea of the work involved. I've also included a few images from the process.

Kick-off workshop

We engaged department heads to identify the challenges we were facing and to create a common understanding of the issues at hand. By prioritizing these problems, we discovered that the undesired behaviors were actually symptoms of deeper organizational misalignments.

Research and Observations

We conducted interviews with staff and observed tourist behavior to uncover the root causes of the issues. We identified that tourists were confused due to unclear signage and lack of guidance, leading to disruptions.

Ideation workshops

We collaborated with staff to brainstorm solutions, fostering their involvement and motivation, and formulated the guiding question: How might we provide tourists with a purposeful visit while maintaining the building's open nature?

Rapid prototyping

We developed simple, non-digital solutions that could be tested quickly, including improved signage and self-guided tours, and conducted rapid prototyping while observing tourists' interactions with the new interventions.

Key learnings

• Thoroughly understand problems before jumping to solutions
• Involve users and staff to leverage their insights and energy
• Simple, low-tech solutions can be effective and should be considered before complex digital options