AUTOMATED WAIT TIMES
INTERNAL APPLICATION FOR UNIVERSAL’S RIDES AND ATTRACTIONS TEAM

Background

This work was done by me for Chaos Theory Studios for their end client, Universal Destinations and Experiences.

Universal Studios Theme Parks are growing and preparing for the imminent opening of the new EPIC™ park. Universal decided to invest in a 1990's legacy software redesign to address evolving user and business needs while fixing problems and making the software easy to use for and accessible to differently-abled team members.

I led the UX strategy, research, design and writing for that effort.

I identified and implemented design and functionality opportunities based off testing, and crossfuctional workshops and ideation.

This initiative was a consolidation of different tools and processes. Product requirements would change often based on lack of user understanding and workflow and backend capabilities.

I recommended and then conducted Usability testing with the rides and attraction team managers and employees to discover opportunities and functionality they needed and would make it easy for them to do their jobs well.

Some capabilities we designed for phase 1:

1. Permissions-based view and edit functionality for attractions and queues

2. View and set the guest-facing / displayed wait time (standby) and statuses (standby and single rider)

3. Publish the guest-facing / displayed wait time or status to the guest app

4. Setup and configure a new attraction/queue

5. Modification or removal of an attraction

6. Set the status of an individual attraction (to closed, ride full, weather delay, brief delay, seasonal closure, opens at, closes at, virtual line only, next show at, coming soon, and any other previous or customized messaging)

7. Set the status of multiple attractions at once

Process

I facilitated a design and collaboration process with Product and Business leadership, which included cross-functional workshops to work through features and capabilities the new software needs and align on a UX process while offering transparency and an opportunity for focused ideation sessions at strategic points during our work process.

Some improvements we made:

• Moved spacing to an 8px grid.

• Utilized the new Universal GDS grid.

• Employed new GDS components where possible to expedite development, including text components.

• Assisted product definition by auditing the legacy app, interviewing users and stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of workflows and needs.

• Streamlined the back-and-forth deliberation process by communicating core usability design principles and providing usability test insights that informed our product design.

Attractions

Showtimes

Character Appearances

Mobile

Moderated usability testing

Coding research

action items / iteration based on UXR and final prod/biz requests

UX writing

Dev handoff