Gabi and Grace here, welcoming you back to Part 2 of our Escape Room Series! In our combined experience, we’ve faced over 60 rooms across 8 states and 4 countries. But, of course, we’re not only escape room geeks, we’re also Interaction Nerds. Join us as we reflect and dissect our escape room experiences to pull insights informing UX design, problem-solving, and more!
The Interaction Nerds team successfully escaped last week. And set the monthly record for fastest time!
Your team’s ability to work together can make or break your ability to escape. Across the many rooms we’ve done, we have learned a lot about what makes a team great and what can lead to its downfall. And as it turns out, successful escape room teams can teach us a lot about what makes for successful teams in industry too.
In an alien-themed room, we had a table of colored buttons that we knew we needed to press in a certain order and were searching desperately for the pattern anywhere in the room. That’s when I noticed blinking LEDs in a different room. All of a sudden I realized that we were supposed to play a deconstructed version of the Simon game. This was not a puzzle I could finish myself; not only would I forget the patterns while running between rooms, but my teammates would also wonder if I had completely lost it. Instead, I had to slow down, explain my realization to my team, and work out a plan to tackle this challenge together.
— Gabi
In escape rooms, and any other collaborative work, it is vital to articulate what you are thinking as soon as possible. This can often be harder than you think, especially with half-baked ideas; it can be intimidating to throw out new ideas or even just explain them in a way that makes sense to others. But sharing your thoughts helps you to develop them better and gives your teammates the chance to build on them too.
In the second room of a multi-room escape room, there was a poster of a train schedule that we needed to use to line up toy trains in the order they would leave the station. While the task seemed straightforward, it turned out that the schedule was incomplete: there was a schedule change for one of the trains, as noted by a small piece of paper in the first room. Luckily, my friend had pointed out the paper as soon as he saw it (before we got to the train puzzle). Then, as soon as I saw the schedule, I knew exactly what to do with the schedule change information.
— Grace
When you dive into independent exploration, or research, it’s easy for team members to gain different perspectives on the challenge based on the information they’ve learned. An effective team is one that continuously merges individual learnings to create a shared understanding of the problem. That way, they can either 1) recognize they have all the necessary information to solve the problem, or 2) effectively brainstorm and evaluate ideas together.
Recently, I did an escape room that had a rotary phone hanging on the wall of the first room. Written on the wall above the phone was a note: “Call Bob, 215-____”. I knew that I had to find the last four digits and dial the number to get a new clue. I started punching in every 4-digit number I could find around the room with no success. It turned out that a while later we found a business card for Bob’s Garage with the correct phone number on it. I had wasted time scrambling for an answer when the right number was waiting for me further down the road.
— Gabi
Patience is crucial when collaborating with a team. Like the phone number puzzle example, rushing to solutions before you have everything you need can waste time and effort. When you discover a new direction to work in, resist the urge to jump to quick fixes. Be patient and give every step in the work process the time it deserves!
I booked an escape room to surprise my family with while we were traveling. The room theme was based on a historical event in the city. Earlier that day, we went on a 3-hour tour about that event. “Remember this for later…” I told my family on the tour, “but not too much.”
— Grace
It’s common practice that escape rooms do not require you to bring in any outside knowledge/information. In some ways, knowing too much background information in a challenge can be a hindrance — you’re prone to making assumptions based on what you think you know. I was worried that my family might overthink the escape room based on our tour. How do you know if the assumptions are correct? Test them quickly, but also be willing to reject them and pivot quickly.
If you and your coworkers, friends, or family are in town, test your teamwork at these escape rooms right here in Pittsburgh!