Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. The Gator Student Ticket Office doesn’t have software that can track lost or stolen football tickets after being picked up.

2. Students that have had their tickets lost or stolen have no way to get them reprinted by the Gator Student Ticket Office without repurchasing a ticket through the office or another person on campus. The ticket office doesn’t have the software in place for them to scan the tickets before handing them out to students, essentially tying the tickets to the student’s University of Florida ID card. 

3. In the past assignment, Forming an Opportunity Belief, I interviewed three students that had recognized the unmet need that I presented to them during the interviews. Hannah, Chad, and Chris all recognized the unmet need when presented to them even though not all of them have a lost a ticket. However, I felt like I needed more so I decided to interview five different students on campus that also have this unmet need to push it to the boundary.

4. The five students that I interviewed were all students from the University of Florida. Four of the people that I interviewed were students that I work with at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The last person I interviewed was a student in one of my classes on campus that I’ve known for a few semesters that has worked at the Gator Student Ticket Office. 

After conducting the interviews and reviewing the information, I found out more about my hypothesis and the boundaries that it faced.

The participants felt negatively towards the ticket office for not having a system in place for them to be able to reprint lost or stolen football tickets. Although only two out of the five participants have dealt with the issue of losing a ticket after picking them up, they mentioned that if they were to lose a ticket, they would like a better solution than just having to buy another ticket to replace the lost or stolen one. The people who haven’t lost a ticket in the past mentioned that the issue only affects people who lose their football tickets, but it could ultimately apply to anyone if they were to lose their ticket(s). 

During the interview, I proposed a solution where the ticket office introduces a feature to their software where they scan the tickets before handing them out to students to tie the tickets to your ID card. The participants felt positive towards to the feature, but two of the participants, including the one that worked in the ticket office, felt that the software could cause issues like retraining staff, the cost of implementing the software, or bugs that could arise during operation.

One of the participants also brought up the issue of selling tickets after picking them up. The participant said that they have done this before and wondered if the software would present an issue of people selling their tickets and claiming they were lost or stolen to the ticket office and just have them reprinted, canceling out the older tickets.

5. All the participants from the interviews felt that the software would be a good addition to the ticketing office when it comes to finding lost or stolen tickets for football games. The software company that provides their services to the ticketing office have the opportunity to solve an issue many students might be facing every home game. I think with more interviews with various students around campus, it might show more information that could be beneficial to the potential opportunity. 

After interviewing the three people before plus the five for this interview, I believe the opportunity still exists for the student ticket office to look into implementing in their software to recover lost or stolen tickets, but they would need to carry out some system that can prevent people who have sold their claimed tickets trying to get them reprinted after selling them.