Website experience improvements

The Royal Opera House in London operates as two performing companies — The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera — and is one of the world’s leading opera companies. The main profit comes from selling tickets to live performances, online screenings, and broadcasts. Thus, the organization’s official website serves as a medium between the ROH and its fans and is essential for its successful operation. So, Perfectial and Pixetic united their forces to bring the best redesign of the ROH’s website and develop new exciting features for it.

The Royal Opera House website had last been renewed in 2015. So, when we took the project, besides the need for an upgrade, the client wanted to have new features added to create an exceptional user experience. One of them was the Cinema application to help the user find the play screenings nearby.

Next on the agenda was a user-friendly Account section, where website visitors could create and manage their personal profiles at ease. It was a crucial part of the project for loyal ROH visitors who would like to follow the events and manage their membership options.

Lastly, a new navigation interface had to be created. It was designed to help visitors navigate the website to exactly what they need without any confusion. This and previous features had to fit organically into the website’s aesthetics and provide the highest level of usability.

We started off with the Cinema application. To help users easily find a screening nearby, we designed it to gather data on ROH plays and their screenings in the local cinema theaters. This enabled the users to find the nearest one to their current location.

The next thing was the Account section. The task for us was to make the account easily manageable and its interface clear. The personal profile allows users to set contact preferences, meaning their subscriptions to news and offers, and see the purchased tickets in the Events part of the Account section.

Another part of the Account was Schemes. These included Welcome performance (free performance if you haven’t purchased your first ticket yet), Young ROH (created for a younger audience of the ROH), and Access scheme (for the disabled visitors of the ROH).

Finally, we designed an improved horizontal navigation interface. We created it to be easily manageable by the client (ROH) and accessible for website users. Furthermore, we conducted user testing to prove that our design is clear for users, easy to use, and great-looking.

Old version

Our solution

• Updated design of the ROH’s website
• Increased usability of the website confirmed by user testing and user interviews
• New features added organically to expand websites usability
• Close cooperation between Perfectial and Pixetic teams and the ROH during every stage of the project
• Website can be easily updated by the ROH team

Our collaboration is still in progress so feel free ​to follow the updates on roh.org.uk.