UNIVERSAL MOBILE APP REWRITE

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

In 2022, Universal Parks and Resorts were at a crossroads regarding customer-facing digital services. Soon, Universal would announce opening a brand new park in Orlando, Florida (EPIC UNIVERSE™), allowing them to compete for Florida Tourism more directly. They needed to overhaul and modernize their park guest mobile app to support this launch.

Universal recognized the need to assign a multi-disciplinary UX leader and practitioner who could identify guest needs and expectations and articulate them while working closely and collaboratively with cross-functional teams - integrating critical UX processes and implementing enhancements and new features in a fast-paced code rewrite environment.

I was trusted with research, strategy, and design for all the e-commerce aspects of the Universal guest mobile app - Wallet, Mobile Food and Delivery Ordering, and Special Express Pass promotional offers like Contextual - ‘After 4 pm’ and Third Tier express.

IMPACT: 12X+ REVENUE = MORE REVENUE IN THE FIRST MONTH OF LAUNCH (FEB 2024) ON ANDROID THAN ON ALL PLATFORMS IN ALL OF 2023

MY GOALS FOR THIS PROJECT

1. Create a new mobile experience that immerses park guests and does not detract them from the EPIC experiences in Universal’s Portfolio of Parks and Resorts.

2. Provide UX leadership and build the UX infrastructure of the rewrite team to support designing, building, and shipping new app features and functionalities at a pace not attempted by Universal in the past. A reworked UX organization was required to build new systems and methodologies to support the increased production output while not degrading the existing user experience.

3. Build a new Universal Design system to ensure consistent design across all Universal Park and Resort Digital products.

In addition to performing rigorous usability testing, I set out to understand how people solve their trip-planning challenges today using observational methods, like Universal trip-planning Facebook groups, as one point for anthropological research. 

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

1. UX leadership and design ops

2. Designed components for the new Global Design System

3. Wallet (app feature): UX strategy, research, and cross-functional alignment

4. Mobile Food and Drink Ordering (app feature): UX design, UX writing, UI design, UX strategy

5. Contextual Express
   
   

🔒 Due to NDA’s, we won’t be sharing a lot of our strategy and thinking work here, more the results and final deliverables.

HANDS-ON DESIGN LEADERSHIP AND OPS

Design Operations and Process Improvement: 
My team and I championed and structured the design organization of the Universal mobile team.

Here’s how I did it:

• Advocated for early and frequent collaboration with cross-functional teams, leading to more integrated and strategic design decisions.

• Integrated the use of IDEO's user experience principles, introducing innovative human-centered design practices to the team’s process at Universal.

• Encouraged Universal’s UX design department to assert itself more in organizational leadership - augmenting the team’s process and the way they communicate with other disciplines.

  
  

Cross Teams Management and Collaboration:

Cross-functional: I interfaced daily with Product, development, business, marketing, and leadership to negotiate and create user-centered solutions in a complex environment with limited development bandwidth and changing Product and business goals. 

Multi-disciplinary: I collaborated with other UX and CX teams to ensure consistency across features and omni-channel experiences.

Legacy Feature Evaluation: 

I performed audits and testing of long-standing features whose usage had never been tracked or evaluated. This process led to data-driven and human-centered decisions to retain, modify, or remove features based on user engagement and effectiveness.

Strategy, Implementation, and Improvement: 

• Created a cohesive understanding and execution path for the products’ user experience that aligns with the overall business objectives and shared user insights into every step of that process. This enabled us to close disconnects between different stakeholders and departments and find resolutions that met business goals and improved user experience

• The mobile rewrite went beyond improving the existing UX and modernizing the current UI. I ideated and implemented new vital features such as the Universal Wallet, Parks +, Onboarding, and more. We also supported efforts to plan and ideate future work.

UI and Visual Design Overhaul:

My team and I championed substantial improvement in the app's UI and visual design, focusing on consistency and usability and bringing design patterns up to date to meet users' expectations in 2024. The design drew on best practices from contemporary applications, making the app more user-friendly and visually appealing.

'MFDO': With the development of Mobile Food and Drink Ordering, Universal Parks and Resorts will enable users to order food from select venues in advance for table delivery or pickup using the app.

Contextual Express (IN APP PROMOTIONAL OFFER / GALLERY)

On days Universal hasn't sold many Express passes, they offer a select number of discounted 'after 4 pm express passes' to Universal guests using the mobile app via a push notification.

WALLET GALLERY

Universal's 'Wallet' is a hub inside the app where guests can store, access, and purchase their scannable Park entitlements - like admission tickets and Express passes. They can also use 'Universal Pay' to make contactless purchases at quick service restaurants and merchandise locations in the parks and set spending limits for Tapu Tapu™ wearables at Volcano Bay.

Global Design System (GDS) Enhancement: 

We created components for current features that are modular enough to be easily reused for future use cases. The system gives Universal the ability to scale design processes and create concept mockups and create prototypes quickly for more efficient implementation and concept ideation.

Design Documentation, Handoff, and Long-Term UX support:

I handed off detailed design documentation to developers, showcasing the evolution of the GDS. After handoff, I consistently supported developers to clarify confusion and update designs as needed due to technical and timeline constraints. 

Documentation was crucial in bridging the gap between design and development, ensuring a high-quality end product.

Here’s how I did it:

• Created a consistent standard for documenting new components

• Bridged inconsistencies in the transfer of knowledge between Product and Dev leads.

• We helped teams synchronize different processes and workflows to create a ‘source of truth’ that helped us create quick solutions while managing technical and timeline constraints.

Quality Assurance and Testing: 

Collaborative testing with developers during QA sessions, ensuring that each component and feature functioned as intended.

Historical UX Confluence for new onboarding designers and future iterative design and dev initiatives

I designed and - together with a team - produced a single source of knowledge transfer for all UX/UI activities in Mobile App Rewrite. Every designer who onboards for future work will be privy to all past design decisions, usability testing, future UX recommendations, product goals, and the team's strategy and thinking for the Universal mobile app.