Bridging Physical and Digital for Disney Guests to Reduce In-Park Friction Through Mobile Ticket-Linking on iOS and Android.
Guests spending hundreds of dollars on Disney park tickets still faced unnecessary friction. Physical tickets couldn't easily be linked to the app, blocking access to ride reservations and FastPass bookings.
As Senior Interaction Designer paired with a Lead, I designed the end-to-end ticket-linking flows for iOS and Android from sketches through prototypes, functional specs, and UX audit of the live build. The feature shipped and the app met Disney's internal success threshold: 4/5 stars on iOS and 4.2/5 on Google Play.
Above: Scanning physical admission ticket; UI comp by the visual design team.
Above: Ticket dashboard after guest has linked to physical admission; UI comp by the visual design team.
Note: This project is from 2014. It's included here because it directly demonstrates guest experience design for Disney at the physical-digital intersection.
TLDR Overview
Role: Senior Interaction Designer (paired with a Lead Interaction Designer)
Team: 2 UX Designers, 2 UI Designers, 1 Business Analyst, 1 Copywriter, Remote Developers
Timeline: 10 months
Challenge: Improve the My Disney Experience iOS/Android app by reducing friction in ticket linking, FastPass booking, and in-park navigation.
Focus Areas: Task flows, interaction design, wireframes, usability testing, iterative refinement across Android and iOS
Impact
Delivered clearer ticket-linking flows, streamlined FastPass reservations, and improved navigation across the app.
HEART framework showed increased Task Success, reduced errors, and increases in Guest Happiness.
The Problem
In 2014, Disney Parks guests who purchased admission tickets at the gate had no way to connect them to the MDX app. Without that link, they couldn't access FastPass reservations, dining bookings, or ride wait times (the core value of the app).
Guests were spending hundreds of dollars to get in the gate and then hitting a wall the moment they tried to use their phones to plan the rest of their day.
Disney's answer was a ticket-linking feature. It didn't exist anywhere in the product yet. We built it from zero.
Leadership's success metric: the app must maintain a 4 out of 5 stars or higher on iOS and Google Play, or it would be pulled from both stores.
My Role
As the execution lead on this feature, I owned the design from first sketch through UAT. Paired with a Lead IXD and Visual Designer, I owned the following:
Drove the Interaction decisions
Produced the wireframes and annotated specs
Designed the iOS and Android flows
Coordinated directly with remote developers through the build.
My product lead ran stakeholder presentations. Together, we partnered tightly to deliver everything else in between.
My Actions
What I did for the Android version:
Brainstorming & Sketched Designs
Created
Wireframes & Prototypes
Flowcharts and Screen Flows
Prototypes
Annotated Functional Specs
UX Audit of built app
1. Sketch Initial Ideas
Before taking to the mouse and keyboard, prefer to hand sketch my ideas and concepts. This enables me to think more quickly and freely.
Below: Sketches for the Landing page and Scanner. Framed versions on the right explore rapid prototyping with the iPhone notepad template.
2. Create Wireframes: Linking & Scanning Flow
Screen flows enabled the team to reference and discuss the path Guests would take during the linking process.
Yellow blocks contain interaction descriptions for the development team.
3. Create Prototypes: Linking & Scanning
Rough rapid prototypes communicated to Stakeholders and DEV how the app should animate.
Using Axure desktop prototype (instead of mobile) was faster and easier to present to remote teams, as well as sharing the prototype link to stakeholders.
Below: Beginning the process of adding a ticket to the user’s account.
Below: Scanning and saving the ticket to the user’s account.
Below: Selecting a name from the list to assign to the ticket.
4. Highlight Android vs iOS Deviations
The Android team did a commendable job of building the Android app using the iOS wireframes. We needed to get leadership approval where the apps would deviate.
We prepared a deck to walk stakeholders through all the deviations of Android from iOS, and get their sign-off for next steps.
5. Improve Android Navigation: Back vs Up
The Android behavior for the Back vs Up button was communicated to Stakeholders and Tech using this flow below.
6. Give Feedback to Remote Developers
To share thorough feedback with the remote developers, I narrated videos of the build and relayed them to the team, similar to “Loom” videos of today. This enabled us to share IXD feedback with a wider remote audience, who could rewind and replay as needed. Developers said it was “dorky, but helpful”.
Select segments from the full 15 minute video are shown below.
The slower portions were sped up to reduce the overall playback time.
The Result
HEART Framework:
Happiness – Reviews consistently praised the app as “beyond helpful”, “convenient”, and a “great and very useful app”.
Engagement – Mobile users repeatedly used the app because they could now check the app for ride wait.
Adoption – The convenience of managing their park experience on the go encouraged new users to download and trust the app.
Task Success – Mobile users reported it made planning fast passes, dining reservations, much easier in the parks.
The feature was a success on the app stores shown below:
The iOS version received 4 out of 5 stars in the Apple App Store
The Android version received 4.2 out of 5 stars in the Google Play Store.
Below: Android reviews and actual screenshots of the live app.
Below: iOS reviews and actual screenshots of the live app.
My Takeaway
This project taught me two things I still use today.
Cross-platform design is not just a file problem, it’s a communication problem. Getting iOS and Android teams to ship the same experience from the same set of specs required constant, specific, asynchronous feedback. Narrating videos over the live build and sending them to remote developers was unconventional at the time, but it closed the gap between design intent and what actually shipped.
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Second, designing at Disney's scale means your decisions land in the hands of guests who have saved up for months to be there. That raises the stakes on every friction point you remove.
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If I were approaching this project today, I would add unmoderated usability testing on the scanning flow before shipping, design error states for mismatched or expired tickets earlier in the process, and use AI tools to compress the time spent on early concepts so more effort could go into edge cases and accessibility.