‘All In’ is a pioneering new arts access scheme in the UK and Ireland, commissioned by Arts Council England, Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales and Creative Scotland, with the aim of making creative and cultural experiences more accessible for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people.

Calvium, with our partners Yoti, are delighted to be part of the multi-agency team who have been commissioned to deliver this innovative project. All In is harnessing digital technology to simplify the ticket booking process for people with access needs. Its ambition is to create a digital membership system through which disabled people only need to provide details of their access needs once, rather than repeating the process for each location. 

In this interview, All In’s Tech Lead, Phil Lofthouse, talks about how research has influenced the scheme, what he has learned along the way, and what he would and wouldn’t do differently given the chance.

Why did you want to be involved in this project?

I like doing work that aims to make an impact. With this project, more so than others, there’s a tangible way this can make a meaningful impact on our society. It could change the way people interact with our sector and therefore it could actually be a route to changing people’s lives. That makes it worthwhile and also more energizing, in that we have to get this right.

An array of different research studies were commissioned to inform the All In arts access scheme before the project itself was commissioned. Can you describe the research themes that you commissioned and why you took this approach?

Before Covid-19, the four UK Arts Councils commissioned a feasibility study, which focussed on well-established issues around access in the arts and the need to create a cultural sector that works for disabled people. The issue is that people with access requirements end up going through a more convoluted, often laborious and disjointed booking path to get to the same place as everyone else – from deciding what to see to getting a ticket in your hand.

The feasibility study was designed to do a sentiment check to make sure that we understood the full extent of the issues, and that this was something people wanted the Arts Councils to lead the way on fixing. The study also started to do some work around what that might look like, the costs and the idea of what is possible, so that the Arts Councils had enough information to commission the scheme.

From this, we commissioned independent pieces of research focused on each of the broad stakeholder groups that we had identified: cultural organisations, disabled customers and tech providers, for example ticketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms.

For the first two groups our aim was to understand the perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges and needs of a scheme like this. We then used this information to focus our resources where the need was greatest and we could have the biggest and most effective impact.

We also needed to understand what was technically possible, how we might approach it, using the best tools available, and what resources the current tech infrastructure would require. The technology used by our sector is very specialised, and so it was important to understand how a new product might interact with the existing ticketing and CRM platforms, and how we could bring the developers of those platforms on the journey with us.

What were the main objectives of the research you commissioned and how did you ensure that it would inform the project’s brief?

Our main objective was to check and challenge our existing understanding, and fully scope out what we needed to produce. We needed to make sure what we produced a) met that need and b) fully understood the challenge. The original feasibility had shown there was a strong desire for a scheme like All In, but we as a team really needed to get into the detail of that. 

My background is in ticketing software, so I knew one element behind it all was the need to understand and address the issues specific to the act of booking a ticket. I knew some customers were not getting as far as the booking path, and others were getting through the booking path in a reasonably smooth way but were running into issues when they attended the venue, for instance the venue wasn’t prepared for them or they weren’t receiving the access provision they were expecting, or in some cases, the provision didn’t exist at all.

We took that opportunity to understand all the touchpoints that a customer would have with a creative and cultural organisation. That meant we could make sure we didn’t focus all of our resources into one place and could spread them in a balanced way to end up with a balanced product. Therefore, rather than just improving one element to a very high standard, we could level the playing field.

Can you briefly describe the research methods used and why they were chosen? Were there specific insights that you hoped to gather from these methods?

We took a similar approach with the three stakeholder groups but each had its nuances. It was a funnel-like approach, where the initial aim was to get a very broad consensus and get a little insight from lots of people. We started doing surveying work to understand where there were particularly interesting user stories and to define the broader questions. Then we commissioned our researchers to get a bit more focused; groups got smaller and smaller until, in some cases, we were doing roundtables or even one-to-one interviews.

Given we are dealing with people with complex access needs, and surveys and roundtables are not accessible to everyone, it was important we were not inadvertently excluding anyone by the methodology we were using. This made sure we could bring insight from a range of lived experiences too.

What were some of the most surprising or influential findings from the research? If there were any, how did they play a role in shaping the project’s direction or priorities?

Our three stakeholder groups were important, as they brought different opinions, but also shared a very broad consensus in that the issues that needed to be solved were understood in very similar ways. That had a really positive effect because it meant that there weren’t multiple conflicting viewpoints; we could channel them all into the same place.

We did try to dig deeper to try to avoid any confirmation bias – we knew there was a chance we were lucky with everyone agreeing with each other – but every time we dug deeper we kept coming back to similar consensus.

The one finding that came out most strongly was around standards. Even when we were talking about the booking path, one of the underlying issues was that there wasn’t a standard for how to do it, and there wasn’t a consistent approach. 

Crucially, standards can mean different things to different people, which led us to identify four strands of standards that were distinct and needed: the built environment, digital communication, customer service, and commissions, events, and programming. define its scope.

How have the results of the research influenced the project i.e. informed phased work briefs, changed direction, developed thinking?

We were never under any illusion about the size of this project, and the research allowed us to apply our limited resources in a pragmatic way. 

For example, the prominence of the standards were revaluated as a result of the findings from our research. But also, it became clear that technology on its own won’t solve the problems identified; its people using a digital product well that actually solves the issues.

This influenced our thinking regarding the support and skills development element of the project. We knew that in order to use the digital element and improve standards, we also needed to make sure there was a proper support network and skills development programme to not only show the sector what they should be doing but support them in achieving it.

What key points will you take from this process – would you approach the role of research differently in future?

Yes and no. There have been things we’ve done on instinct, sometimes more pragmatically, because we are a small team and we need to use our time, energy and resources wisely. That is one thing I would approach in a similar way.

However, there are other parts of the process that I would build in a more defined way.

For example, if we had spent two months at the beginning focusing solely on setting up our research period, prior to a defined discovery phase, we would have expedited our progress.

In reality, those two phases of work became entwined, so we were trying to do too much at once which spread our resources too thinly and slowed the whole process down.

With research providing the project with solid foundations, would you recommend this approach to others undertaking complex innovation projects? If so, why? If not, why?

Absolutely. As a public body, it can be quite tricky to use a fully agile methodology but applying agile elements where possible has been an advantage. Other than tweaking the process, I don’t think at any point I’ve looked back and thought we should have used a different methodology for this project. 

Working in this way does come with additional workload and complexities and sometimes you have to be agile in a place where agility can’t really exist. So you have to identify where you can move quickly and where things will move more slowly. 

One of the challenges about this way of working is you have to be quite forthright with people around you – particularly those who are more senior – and not overpromising and overcommitting too early. 

We’ve had to be really definitive about the way we’re working and how that ties into the wider organisation. This means there’s a lot more clarity around things that might otherwise happen by accident or instinct. All this has helped to build confidence within the organisation and the sector, allowing people actively come on the journey with us.

Finally, I advocate for undertaking innovation at speed and with care, have you found that front-loading research before pressing the go button on design and development, has sped things up in any way?

At this moment in time, I am feeling the benefit of it. It feels like we’ve lived the dream in terms of putting a bit more time into the research and discovery at our end, so that having hit ‘go’ we’re looking at a reasonably swift development process for this type of project.

It is also useful to have lots of insight at our fingertips so that we can answer supplier questions quickly without having to revisit old ground or, in the worst case, need to commission another research study to answer a specific user need.

But we are possibly a little early in the development to say for certain. I am looking forward to getting through to the other end so I can look back and say we have lived the dream.

Thank you Phil for sharing your experience and insights!