Disneyland.com - Complete Redesign
Client: Disneyland
Link: View Project
My Role: Flash Designer, Visual Designer:
I supported the WDPRO team with prototyping, visual design and flash development for the new site. With every redesign our sites become more data driven and with more and more content for our users. With the expansion of the Disneyland site we needed it to be lightweight and easily customizable. It great to see it come together with latest addition of our flash media player that boasts video, slides, 360s, interactive maps and section specific flash media. Already we’re getting excellent feedback.
Challenge:
Complete update the Disneyland.com site in the Nextgen style while developing interactive flash maps, applications and new branded media engine.
Solution:
The new site is essentially a complete, top-to-bottom redesign of the Disneyland content site. Leveraging the NextGen technology platform, the project operated on an aggressive budget and timeline by reusing code where possible, and innovating to deliver new tools and content relevant to the Disneyland audience. The team relied heavily on Guest insights to influence and validate the designs; input from site comments, Guest Communications teams, several qualitative research sessions and quantitative surveys enabled this 360-degree feedback design process.
Scope includes new site architecture and CMS, intuitive site navigation, immersive media, and a complete copy re-write to inform, motivate and entertain Guests. New Disneyland.com highlights:
- Full content sites launching simultaneously in English and Spanish
- Rich, immersive media, including new videos, slideshows and 360s
- Home page media “chapter” design, allowing flexible marketing as Resort priorities change
- Custom-designed, printable calendar tools for monthly, daily and multi-day planning
- Faceted listing pages that deliver powerful browse and search tools
- Interactive map tools
- Improved Resort Hotel content, highlighting Disney differences, easy comparison tools and quick entry to booking
- Robust, faceted Good Neighbor Hotel section, making it easier to sort through all offerings to find the best fit for their family
- New focus on “Lands” in both Parks, including immersive storytelling and Land-level navigation
- Robust Downtown Disney content, marketing it as not only part of the Resort experience, but also a destination for locals
- Expanded “At A Glance” and Guest Services content, including accessibility information
- Landing pages for Character Experiences, So Calif. Destinations and other common Guest questions
- Recommender feature for attraction, dining and entertainment experiences, also serving as a cross-park promotion tool
- New Profile services, aligned with WDW in the spirit of One Disney and consistent Guest experience
- New global navigation treatment for Commerce, AP and My Disneyland pages
- First WDPRO site that has 2 languages fully searchable and indexed by FAST
Partners:
Yellow Shoes
Highlights:
Aulani Resort Flash Takeover, Promos & Virtual Tour
Client: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online
Link: View Project
My Role: Flash Lead, Flash Designer, Visual Designer:
I worked closely with WDPRO Vacation Club team to help develop flash media to takeover the members homepage to promote Disney’s new Aulani Resort and Spa in Hawai’i. I’ve been through several generations of the Disney Vacation Club site and have worked on a variety of different cycles of homepage experience.
Challenge:
Create a video wave that overflows the page to display a flash takeover. There are basically three sections of the takeover including a slideshow. There is also logic to track number of page visits to turn off the takeover after a few visits. It also needed to open and close on a div layer.
Solution:
The takeover uses external video, xml, flash stored objects and external interface calls to javascript functions to create media experience. I also built a custom Aulani Virtual Tour application with multiple chapters of images, slideshows and music. There also were custom ‘easter egg’ menehune banner ad / promos that revealed hidden animation and information with user interaction.
Partners:
Yellow Shoes Photography, Disney Vacation Club and Aulani Imagineers
Disney World Summer Nightastic Media Window
Client: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online
Link: View Project
My Role: Lead Flash Designer
Example of flash media I developed for the Walt Disney World website. I create these types of media pieces on a very regular basis to increase the user experience online. This example combines AE video special FX, flash timeline animation, png sequences and sound FX integrated for a quick flash experience for high-bandwidth users.
Challenge:
Develop a short, interactive flash experience to promote WDW Summer Nightastic. The WDW Nightastic logo needed to appear out the the fireworks.
Solution:
A hybrid piece of flash, audio and video effects.
Partners:
WDPRO Media Team
Disneyland Summer Nightastic Minisite
My Role: Lead Flash Designer and Visual Designer
Full Flash minisite used to promote Disneyland’s Summer Nightastic event. I was the Flash Lead and main Flash Designer on the project. I designed the site refresh to incorporate a 3D holographic effect using a technology called ChromaDepth that uses the site’s color spectrum and refracturing of light / dark (they’re called CyberHolograms). Encoding in a CyberHologram reconstructs the holographic information from binocular viewpoints. The result is a ’spectrally addressed binocular viewpoint hologram with retrograde parallax’. The Nightastic event was the perfect medium to use this effect based off it’s already slightly neon colors and nightime hours. Unfortunately, you’ll need special prismatic glasses to see the effect. You can see the site also functions normally without using any special glasses. There also was some complexity having to add geo targeting for Special Offers, multiple languages and deep linking.
Challenge:
Develop new content for the Summer Nightastic minisite in a condensed time span. My role was to build upon the existing framework, make the site look fresh, introduce new attractions including the new World of Color Spectacular & new Toy Story Mania game, design a new navigational system and build multiple detail pages. We also had to integrate multiple languages, tracking and geo targeting for special offers.
Solution:
I designed a new carousel navigation highlighting the Nightastic events and redesigned the minisite to incorporate the new 3D/Holographic look. I was able to master the effect by implementing a set of rules and guidelines to assist in choosing the right background and palette to achieve the desired holographic effect. I also designed new Summer event detail pages, special offer pages, promos and small ambient animations. The Disney executives loved the new direction and results. Hopefully this project has opened the gateway to some exciting work in the near future.
Highlights:
Holographic Website
“These clear micro-optics actually ‘play’ the hologram into your eyes! What you see is a true holographic image floating on your monitor.”
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online Careers
Client: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online
Link: View Project
My Role: Flash Developer and Visual Designer
Full flash minisite used for Disney’s interactive recruitment, for many different teams including Advanced Projects, Tech, Flash, Visual Design, IA and copy. We designed the site using the Pure MVC Framework and an easy to update XML data structure.
Challenge:
Develop a recruitment site for multiple business units in a very condensed time line. The site needed to updated easily and also be able grab potential employee’s attention.
Solution:
We developed a flash front end with lightweight framework that could easily be updated with XML data and links into the Disney Careers Automated Tracking System to retrieve job postings for WDPRO. Specifically I designed and developed the detail pages.
Highlights:
Full Flash, resizes with browser, Pure MVC Framework, Light-weight and XML driven