We’re working on the site’s navigation scheme (or, you know, the lack of a scheme).
Imagine we had a generic “landing page” for touring plans. That page describes what a touring plan is, why you’d want one, and so on.
From there, we want to show you the pre-made touring plans we’ve already got on the site.
There are several ways to present that information. Here’s two:
Option 1
By Park (e.g., Magic Kingdom Touring Plans, EPCOT Touring Plans, etc)
Then by Demographic (e.g., Parents with Small Children, Adults, Seniors, etc.)
Option 2
By Demographic first (e.g., Parents with Small Children, Adults, Seniors, etc.)
Then by Park (e.g., Magic Kingdom Touring Plans, EPCOT Touring Plans, etc)
The advantage of Option 1 is that all of the Magic Kingdom touring plans are in the same place.
The advantage of Option 2 is that if you’re a parent with small children, all of the plans you’re interested in are on the same page.
Which option would you prefer? And if you think there’s another way to do this, let me know.
As a parent of small kids, I prefer by demographic. Perhaps at the bottom of the Magic Kingdom for Small Kids plan you could include a link to “All other Magic Kingdom plans”. That way if someone wants to explore other plans they don’t have to search by demographic first.
I’d want to start with choosing the park I’m visiting first, then providing the additional information that might get me the plan that might be most suited to me.
But since it seems that already we have differences in opinions on this, would it be possible to have two buttons that say:
I’m leaning towards demographics because that’s a useful and unique feature. Any other site might have generic park plans, but TP has them catered to individual needs (ie personalised) and that’s your thing!
I would expect to navigate by park; I don’t usually plan all my days at once- I start by choosing the park I expect to visit latest in the trip (for choosing dining options, previously for FPP, wanting the +10 advantage as much as possible) and once I tinker with that day enough I need a break before I embark on plans for the rest! haha.
I vote park first. Then show options for different demographic. I would personally like to see all the different itineraries for 1 park at a time vs pick a demographic then look at all the parks.
I would do park first - that way I could easily click and compare to see the differences in the different demographics.
I do like the idea of having a spot at the bottom of the plan to see other park plans in that same demographic. Kind of a like this one? Check out these.
I would give the user an option. Use your database skills to have key-field searches so that it could be customised. Of course dumb it down for us Liners where they just click a button to start the filtering of the plans.
I think you need to do research, including a usability study, for your entire site rather than developers/tech dreaming up what they think are user friendly options and asking leading questions. I find that having these discussions ahead of time, and seeing how people do things, and doing all the different user studies research before I start working on the coding part of any project makes for a much more user-friendly product that is intuitive and a joy to use. I find your entire site is extremely hard to navigate.
Thank you, Gregg. We’ve already done a usability study for the entire site, using a dedicated UX company.
When it comes time to discuss alternatives, there has to be a starting point for any alternative, right? And so my question is meant to define what that starting point is, for one specific part of our site.
Actually, I would have a dynamic table that can be sorted, grouped, and filtered by various metadata (park, demographic, etc) and allow the user to choose. For first time users, you could have presets to choose from.
I’m leaning into Option 1. The demographics is good, but potentially a lot of options to throw at someone when they hit the site and much of it wouldn’t be relevant. Since Touring Plans doesn’t plan the entire vacation, I’d guess that most people are searching for a plan per park. Once they choose their park I think it is easier for the user to decide what demographic they’re looking for since one major decision is out of the way.
Summary:
Choose a park
Choose their demographic
Choose their desired experience
Give example options to adjust the experience
Finally open up all the options to the user
*Probably should have some sort of option to go straight to the last step for experienced users
Disney planning can be overwhelming, particularly for a first timer (or first time planner). So I will favor the method that slowly eases them into the planning. Sort of like in a video game where they let you play in a very linear fashion at first so that you are playing, but in a controlled way until the controls and concepts are explained and then they let you loose.
Right now, we’re like a hidden gem.