Looking at Disney’s theme parks through the lens of a UX designer
Thinking about UX beyond the digital world
Recently, I went on a vacation to Orlando to celebrate a birthday, a half marathon, and my love for all things Disney. When I was there, I was blown away by how much thought and attention to detail Disney had put into its theme parks.
Going with my father, my wife, and our friends got me thinking about how different people perceive the same experience. Looking at Disney’s theme parks through the lens of a UX Designer, I noticed a lot of things that inspired me to be a better designer.
Crafting an Immersive Experience
Words Can Enhance The Story
Language plays a huge role in a user’s experience. With our words, we create definitions, communicate rules, and express empathy. Depending on how we use them, words are also a great opportunity to develop the narrative of the worlds we create.
A great example this in action is Mickey’s PhilharMagic Concert, where viewers attend an opera that Mickey conducts. Essentially, it’s just a 3D film, but Disney never breaks its narrative––instead, they take every opportunity to stick to their theme, even when communicating rules for their experience. Users are given 3D glasses to watch the show, but Disney refuses to call them 3D glasses, instead referring to them as “Opera Glasses.” They intentionally deviate from a common naming convention of something viewers are used to, in order to keep their narrative cohesive and tell their story.
Details Are Appreciated (and Noticed)
Attention to detail is a huge part of designing a cohesive experience. If an experience lacks detail, it loses its form, becoming weaker and hampering the user’s experience.
(*small spoiler*) At the end of the PhilharMagic concert, Donald crashes through a wall of the theater into the next room. In that room is a gift shop, and in the center of it, there is a statue of Donald wrapped up in musical instruments. Disney takes their story one step further by integrating the conclusion of the show into their set design, building a cohesive narrative for the user and recalling the concert viewers just saw.
Commit to Your World
Whenever you create something, you have the opportunity to connect each element and stitch together a world for your users. The more touch points that sell your world to the user, the more immersive the world you create is.
In Galaxy’s Edge, the new Star Wars component of Hollywood Studios, this idea is taken to the max––all of the cast members never break character, helping reinforce the idea that you are actively participating in a story.
While I was buying a glass of Blue Milk, the cashier mentioned it would cost “credits” instead of dollars. When I presented my credit card, he told me to use his “droid” (credit card machine) to buy the drink. When I swiped my card and the machine processed the order slowly, he said that his “droid had been malfunctioning all day because it was an older model.” In the blink of an eye, the crew member effortlessly turned a mundane transaction (that was semi-frustrating even) into an opportunity to build upon the theme Disney created, fully committing to the world.
Accommodating Different Personas
Lenticular Design
Lenticular Design is a concept I learned about from Mark Rosewater, a prominent game designer who leads design for Magic: the Gathering, a popular trading card game. Mark uses the term to describe the way he designs experiences for different types of players, illustrating the way he makes cards that people look at differently depending on their experience with the game.
Mark introduces a lot of great concepts in the article (and you should really read it, especially if you like games), but one of the major takeaways is this:
“The motive behind lenticular design is that we want to find ways to add complexity to enhance the game for the more-experienced players without increasing the difficulty for the less-experienced ones.”
How does this concept come into play at a theme park? Well, Disney does this by enabling choice and designing different levels of participation for its users within the systems it creates. For example, Disney has recently introduced a system where users can reserve rides in advance called FastPass. Essentially, people can make reservations for the rides they want to go on before getting to the park.
FastPass is a simple concept to understand, but within this system exists a lot of nuance. Rides can be scheduled up to two months in advance depending on the tickets you purchase, some rides are premium and can only be reserved if it’s the only one of its type you reserved that day, and if you use all of your passes early in the day, you can get more.
To the novice, they see FastPass as a way to skip the line when they are at the park. To the expert, they see a system they can use to plan out their day and adjust their wait times on the fly. The system is lenticular, designed in a way that has simple rules but complex interactions, or what I like to call “emergent complexity.”
Designing for First Time Users
So many different types of people come to Disney theme parks. Children, adults, families, couples, newlyweds, and more all choose Disney as a vacation destination, and as a result, Disney has to design with each of them in mind. One way Disney thinks of its users is by giving first time visitors a special welcome pin. By having this pin, these users signal to all cast members that they are new to the park, which allows the cast to proactively provide them with special assistance if needed and gives the cast a chance to go out of its way to leave a strong first impression.
Designing for Superfans
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the superfan––the user that goes deep on an experience, that has a great wealth of knowledge and love for a property or brand. Disney caters to these enthusiasts in many ways, from building your own Star Wars droid souvenir at Galaxy’s Edge, to making your own lightsaber, to taking photos with the characters from its various worlds. But Disney takes the superfan concept to the next level with Club 33.
Club 33 is a set of private clubs located in different Disney theme parks. The entrances are hiding in plain sight, and can only be accessed if you’re a member. Being a member (or a guest, if you’re lucky enough to know someone) grants you access to unique and exclusive resort experiences, such as entrance to secret jazz clubs or private viewings of original animation cells of Disney films. Disney has gone so far that it caters to the superfans of more than just its various worlds–– it caters to superfans of Disney itself.
According to Wikipedia, corporate members pay an initiation fee of $40,000, and individual members pay $25,000 in addition to annual dues, which are about $12,000 (seriously, if you’re a member, let’s hang out).
Enabling a User’s Agency
“My Own Experience”
Agency is a powerful thing to give to your users — by enabling choice, you can let your users make decisions to cater the experience to their wants and needs. The more agency you provide your users, the more they start to craft their own narrative within your product. This process invests them further into the experience and lets them walk away with their own story — which they will be eager to share with other.
At Disney, a family of four will seek out different experiences than a honeymoon couple. There might be some overlap between their goals and constraints, but even if each of those groups go to the same attractions, they will have a different set of stories by the end of the day. Disney provides multiple pathways to move through its theme parks, the ability to prioritize various sections depending on which rides you reserve in advance, and a multitude of things to do at each attraction, depending on your preferences and expertise.
Disney enables these choices for users by providing them with options and arming them with information. Through the Disney app, users can learn about upcoming shows, manage their schedules, make restaurant reservations, and see real time data about line waits. All these options allow users to make decisions and craft their own stories at the park.
Taking Control on Rides
In Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, the concept of agency is taken to the extreme. Users are tasked with shooting as many aliens as they can during the ride, and have the ability to aim their guns, turn their ship, and focus on the targets they choose are the most important. In this way, the user crafts their own experience and walks away with a score that is uniquely their own.
“User Experience” Combines All Touch Points
It’s easy to think that when people talk about UX, they mean the digital screens that a person interacts with––how something looks, the visual effects that occur when you start clicking around the screen, and all of the digital components that go into it. But true UX, a “user experience,” is more than that––it’s the summation of the points of interaction a person has with the thing that you create. That “thing” could be a screen, or a digital product, but it also could be a board game, or a coffee machine, or even a theme park.
The principles outlined above all factor into a user’s experience, and each one impact the way a user perceives what someone creates. At Disney, these things don’t exist in a vacuum — they are integrated and interwoven together in a brilliant set of values that extend to each touch point people have when they attend a Disney theme park.
There’s a good reason why going to Disney is magical––it’s because, at every level, they’ve thought about the user’s experience.
