Conjuring up a touch of COVID-friendly Halloween hocus pocus
Halloween is only about two weeks away and it’s clear this year’s celebration will be unlike any other. In past years, our family walked to a block party a few streets away. My husband and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors and admired the elaborate decorations, while our kids went trick-or-treating down each driveway.
We didn’t want Halloween to end up as another casualty of 2020. Halloween is one of the kids’ favorite holidays and they’ve already missed out on so much in the last six months that we really wanted to make sure that Halloween still has a little magic this year.
I realized that I could take my PM wand out and “solve” Halloween, just like I would any other user problem. Let’s start by defining the problem.
Problem Space
Goal: Have as much fun celebrating Halloween this year as we had in previous years, while maintaining social distancing to reduce risk of COVID exposure
User Persona: Our target user persona consists of young children between the ages of 4 and 6. They are in preschool and early elementary school. They are aware of the upcoming Halloween holiday, and can remember celebrating in previous years.
User Needs: A Halloween celebration needs to serve many user needs -
- Getting candy
- Eating candy
- Giving out candy
- Putting on a costume
- Being seen by friends in a costume
- Seeing friends’ costumes
- Carving a jack-o-lantern
- Putting up decorations
- Seeing neighbors’ decorations
- Maintaining social distancing
With such a long list of user needs, I wanted to make sure that my solution would address the most important needs. I did some qualitative user research and talked to my users about what they like most about Halloween. To nobody’s surprise, I learned that the needs they value most revolve around candy. However, it was shocking that their top two needs didn’t include eating candy. Instead, they liked the element of randomness and surprise when getting candy and equally prioritized the joy of giving out candy.
With a solid understanding of the problem, we can move on to thinking about solutions.
Solution Space
Ideation: For each user need, I brainstormed ideas that would satisfy the need.
User need: Getting candy
- Status quo: trick or treat in our neighborhood
- Idea 1: Trick or treat at friends’ houses in our pod
- Idea 2: Trick or treat at each room of our house
- Idea 3: Hunt for candy hidden in backyard
- Idea 4: Invite pod friends to hunt for candy with us
- Idea 5: Give a bag of candy to each kid
User need: Giving out candy
- Status quo — hand out candy when someone knocks on your front door
- Idea 6: Throw candy from our porch to trick-or-treaters
- Idea 7: Use a shovel or lacrosse stick to hand candy to trick-or-treaters from a distance
- Idea 8: Have a table in the driveway that is a “lemonade stand” for candy
- Idea 9: Hide candy in the front yard for trick-or-treaters to find
- Idea 10: Drop off goodie bags at friends’ houses
Prioritization: To properly prioritize the ideas, I needed to collect some data on how fun each idea was perceived to be. I couldn’t launch early and collect real data because a Halloween celebration has to be launched on Halloween. I only have one shot a year to get it right, so I needed user research to increase the chances of success. I used conjoint analysis and asked the kids to trade off on two attributes at a time: would you have more fun doing Idea X or the Status Quo? I talked to the kids separately to ensure they wouldn’t influence each other’s answers. Afterwards, I looked for the answers where they both chose the non-status quo option.
Recommendation: Getting those two to agree on something is harder than it should be sometimes, but we were lucky that they both liked Idea 4 and Idea 8. The candy hunt preserves the surprise-and-delight of trick-or-treating because of the randomness of not knowing what candy they’ll find, while inviting friends over preserves the social element of Halloween. Setting up a lemonade stand for candy allows them the joy of seeing their customers when giving out the candy, while also enabling the candy pick up to be contact-free.
Will this solution meet the goal of being as fun as previous Halloweens? We’ll find out for sure in about two weeks, but we have set ourselves up for the best chances of success because we went through a structured thought process. The solutions that work best for your family may be different because you may have different needs and preferences. I encourage you to try using product principles to conjure up a Halloween celebration for your family or solve other problems that come up in daily life. One thing is certain — I dare you to find a cuter panda or more courageous Red Power Ranger this Halloween.
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