Can sitting on a bus become magical?
A UX critique of Walt Disney World’s bus transportation and a conceptual* plan to improve it
*In no way is this affiliated with Disney - it is simply a UX research exploration and concept
Overview
🤔 Problem: Walt Disney is packed with magic and nostalgia until you hit the bus station at midnight. There, it’s normal to find sore feet, the smell of sweat, crowded lines, and a myriad of crying children. Why is the experience on WDW buses so different from the experience inside the park?
💡 Solution: You can’t bring aspects of a magical park day onto a bus…. or can you? After gathering survey results and conducting interviews, it became clear that we can pull pieces of park magic back onto the bus without breaking the bank. And it’s all thanks to re-marketing and adding new features to the Disney Play app for the bus transportation experience.
✅ Full UX research and critique completed as my UX Research Capstone project @ George Fox University↗
How might we ease 😌 the experience of riding the bus 🚌 to and from Walt Disney World Parks 🏰?
Research
People’s Least Favorite Mode of Transportation @ Walt Disney World
👎 75% of 31 form respondents (who visited WDW from 2018-22) rated the bus their least favorite mode of WDW transportation
🚨 Newsflash: people don’t like the bus at Walt Disney World
🌱 Because of this, a UX Research Capstone project was born
Analyzing Qualitative Interview Data
🔍 Affinity diagramming helped me turn separate interview quotes into real UX insights
📝 Here’s how it works:
📝 And here is how it worked with all the data:
📝 Like the details? So do I! View the full affinity diagram on Figma↗ to understand how I quantified qualitative data (aka turned words into data points).
User Personas
🧐 Analyzing interview and survey data taught me which moments (regarding transportation and a general day at Disney Parks) tend to bring a smile to people’s face and which do not, which gave me a strong understanding of our users.
👥 Here come the user personas: “Bobby on the Bus” and “Nancy Needs to Know.” Scroll through the slides to understand what makes them happy, tired, frustrated, and even in the mood to put on their Mickey ears or take a photo.
📖 Something I learned to help Bobby and Nancy?
“When it comes to waiting, perception is more important than reality.”
I learned that "if we increase our mental workload, if we occupy our mind, then we're not keeping track of time and, therefore, the wait seems shorter than it really is” (thanks to an insightful article on the psychology of waiting in line↗ by CNN + MIT). I knew this concept could help Bobby and Nancy navigate Disney Bus Transportation.
Solution Brainstorm
💭 To fix the bus experience (especially for all the Bobbies out there), I need to boost positive family experiences (to increase their “mental workload↗”) so the wait feels shorter.
✅ Here are guests’ most positive types of experiences from the affinity diagram and research stage:
💡 And here are my brainstorm ideas that bring these positive Disney Parks experiences onto the bus ride. (Please note, the labels represent which positive experiences are boosted by each brainstorm idea)
Final Design Solutions
🎁 Hand-off time! After presenting the above UX critique as my UX Research Capstone at George Fox University, I sprinkled some mockups into the mix to paint a real picture of the research’s potential impact. (Please note: these designs are based off of Disney’s pre-existing UI design systems. In no way am I affiliated with Disney.)
By implementing the conceptual UX plan, Walt Disney World Bus Transportation would be able to:
✅ Keep families and guests focused on activities other than the wait—perfect for the Bobbies and Nancies—since “when it comes to waiting, perception is more important than reality”
✅ Boost delightful experiences on a bus ride that is often disliked, long, and considered boring
✅ Take advantage of low-cost (re-marketing the Disney Play app as-is) or high-impact options (that cost more, like implementing new app features) depending on time, money, and resources
What I learned
👃 An app user’s experience is not limited to a screen. Physical experiences have limitless touch points: sights, sounds, smells, the changing mood of your toddler, and even a draining phone battery.
💰 Time is money, and money doesn’t grow on trees. Coming up with low-cost and quick-fix options (re-market the Disney Play app as-is) can be a good bandaid while you wait for the higher-impact options (like new app features) to get approved, pan out, and/or release to the public.
🐊 = 🥳 or 😱? People can experience wildly different emotions in the same moment. While riding a Disney boat, one interviewee loved seeing an alligator, while another interviewee absolutely did not. Watch out for situations where users’ gut reactions will have huge differences. (The lake may not need more gators, but maybe it could use safer wildlife all guests can enjoy 🐟🦜🦋 = 🥳.)