UX/UI - Entertainment
UNIVERSAL ORLANDO
Unified Visitor Experience - Rewired digital journeys to clarify visitor intent from exploration to conversion.
Overview
Universal Orlando’s digital ecosystem spanned multiple parks, ticketing options, seasonal campaigns, and planning tools — but the experience lacked structural clarity. Visitors exploring the parks online often encountered fragmented information, overlapping promotional content, and unclear paths toward purchase.
The goal was not simply a visual refresh. It was to redesign the digital experience so discovery, planning, and ticketing felt seamless, intuitive, and confidence-building across devices.
I led UX strategy and experience design to reorganize the platform around user intent, reducing friction from curiosity to conversion.
TEAMMATES
Joshua Hearn, Chelsea Moriarty, Jeff Wagener
The Challenge
Visitors needed to:
- Compare multiple parks and ticket types
- Understand limited-time seasonal offerings
- Plan multi-day trips
- Transition smoothly from exploration to purchase
However, the existing structure blended marketing content with utility tasks, creating cognitive overload and friction early in the decision-making process.
This fragmentation increased bounce and made high-value actions, like ticket comparison and purchase, harder than they should be.
The challenge was to create a cohesive information architecture that aligned with how real visitors think and plan.
Revised navigation architecture for clearer intent paths.
Responsive flow from exploration to ticketing.
My Role
I served as UX Strategy & Experience Design Lead, partnering with creative, content, and development teams to:
- Conduct content and heuristic audits
- Define a revised experience hierarchy
- Redesign navigation logic and task flows
- Lead responsive wireframing and interaction design
- Develop modular design system components to support long-term scalability
- My focus was clarity, usability, and structural coherence
Deliverables included:
- Experience maps & user flows
- Information architecture redesign
- Responsive wireframes
- Modular design components
- Contextual micro-copy frameworks
Wireframes and modular components supporting seasonal campaign integration.
Research & Key Insights
A review of content, flows, and interaction patterns revealed several friction points:
- Redundant and scattered ticket information across pages
- Overwhelming seasonal promotion layers without clear context
- Weak differentiation between discovery content and actionable planning tasks
- Inconsistent cross-device experience at high-decision moments
These findings indicated the core issue was architectural. Visitors needed structured pathways that matched their intent: explore, plan, compare, purchase.
Map animation integrated to the page.
Design Strategy
Instead of refreshing pages in isolation, we restructured the entire experience around user goals.
1. Intent-Based Information Architecture
We reorganized navigation and content grouping around clear mental models:
- Explore Parks
- Plan Your Visit
- Compare Ticket Options
- Purchase & Prepare
This reduced cognitive load and clarified next steps.
2. Modular Content System
Seasonal campaigns (Halloween Horror Nights, Mardi Gras, etc.) were integrated into a modular system that allowed promotional storytelling without disrupting core task flows.
This ensured scalability while maintaining structural integrity.
3. Conversion-Focused Flow Simplification
We streamlined ticket comparison and selection pages to reduce ambiguity between options, emphasizing clarity over visual density.
Decision points were supported with contextual cues and micro-copy to guide users confidently.
4. Cross-Device Continuity
We prioritized responsive behavior at critical planning and purchase stages, ensuring users could transition seamlessly between desktop and mobile during multi-step decision journeys.
Impact & Outcomes
The redesigned experience improved structural clarity across the platform and strengthened alignment between marketing storytelling and functional planning tasks.
Post-launch observations indicated:
- Increased engagement on ticket comparison pages
- Improved path clarity toward purchase
- Reduced friction in early planning flows
- Greater stakeholder confidence in the long-term scalability of the platform
Most importantly, the digital ecosystem shifted from fragmented content delivery to a coherent, user-centered experience.
Mobile website on park experience.