When Good Designs Go Bad

The person who designed FastPass should win an award. I'd like to see a statue of him next to Mickey Mouse in front of the castle. He was an experience design genius.

 If you're not familiar with it already, this is the system that lets you survive those "Crowd Level: 10" days. You stick your park ticket in a machine, it spits out another ticket with a time window that allows you to the front of the line. You then waltz off to find your smoked turkey leg or to trade pins or to ride something with a shorter line, returning later to smirk at schmucks in line while you cruise past them with your FastPass.

I wonder if Disney has ever tracked the amount of money that FastPass has made them. People standing in line spend zero money. People strolling through the park do - a T-shirt here, a Mickey-Mouse-shaped popsicle there - it must add up. The guests love it too. No one wants to stand in line. One of the most common complaints on Tripadvisor about Disney is how much standing in line your near-$100 ticket just bought you.

FastPass is a win-win system. Disney wins, guests win.

In Disneyland Paris, FastPass only kinda sorta worked. Return windows were shorter (15 minutes instead of 30 or 60). Rides broke down right when your return window opened, meaning you just wasted your precious FastPass on NOTHING.

Worst of all, the lines for FastPass were ridiculous. It was possible to stand in a 15-minute line to get a FastPass, so that you could later criss-cross the park to stand in line for another 30 minutes to get on a ride.

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See the hundred people here? All waiting to get a FastPass. And how many of them got it? About 15, since the ride broke five minutes after this photo was taken. They closed the FastPass station, but didn't tell the people who were standing in line. D'oh!

Once you got through the line to a machine, even getting a FastPass presents problems. In the US Disney Parks, you put your ticket in, you get a ticket out. Simple self-service.

Simple interface at a US FastPass kiosk

In Paris, getting a FastPass out of a machine was like getting a smile out of a Parisian waiter. Good luck with that, sucker! At each FastPass station, harried employees scuttled between machines, helping guests wrangle the machines into submission. I counted 2 employees for every four-machine station. Every once in a while, even the employees gave up with the tickets, and just opened the machine to manually force a FastPass to be printed.

Cast member helping a guest figure out how to scan his bar code.

One of the major problems in Paris is that there are at least THREE kinds of tickets being scanned by machines. Magnetic stripe tickets, bar code tickets, full A4 size printed-at-home tickets. Why DLP allows this I have no idea. But there were two kinds of scanner in each machine, and people couldn't figure out where their ticket should go.

I really think the bar code drawing tells me to put my ticket IN the slot. But no, you're supposed to slap it parallel to the surface of the machine. NOT intuitive. But it also needs to accommodate guests who printed their tickets in A4 paper at home.

According to another blog this two-reader system was supposed to be an improvement. But people ran the magnetic stripe backwards, stuck their bar code ticket IN to the machine (kinda like the drawing suggests) rather than putting it parallel to the surface, didn't know what to do with their printed-from-home tickets.  The instructions were non-existent or confusing. The printers were slow. Rather than taking a few seconds a ticket, it was taking 15 or 45 seconds a ticket. And with guests like the lady in front of me running 16 tickets at a time for her group, we were all in for a long wait.

Why Disney doesn't just issue one type of ticket is beyond me. Print-at-home tickets also exist here in the US, but are traded in for standardized tickets in Anaheim at the gate.

With design the devil's in the details - always. There's no reason FastPass can't work more smoothly, even with three kinds of tickets. Even creating a better graphic instruction and slapping on a sticker would help here.

If Disney does track how much money is spent when people have FastPasses, this would be an interesting question. How much money is not being spent at Disney when people are standing in FastPass lines?

Cultural Imperialism

Yup, this is France. Or at least, it's IN France.

If you ever want to laugh at the superior attitude of the French, you should read about the uproar from critics when Disney announced the planned building of Disneyland Paris. More importation of American culture! It was called a "cultural Chernobyl." One journalist went so far as to write, "I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to Disney."

Others were more accepting, pointing out that France has started adopting American culture all on their own. English creeps insidiously into French language, and it takes an official government organization (Le Académie francaise) in order to ward of the Anglicization.

From the initial announcement of the park opening to the cries of dismay and accusations of American cultural imperialism, Disneyland has struggled with where it sits on the cultural spectrum. Mostly, the critics have calmed down by now about encroaching American values, 22 years after its opening. The park itself balances precariously between being French and being American, staying mostly American but with occasional nods to its French location through language and over-use of Beauty and the Beast.

Disney itself didn't really seem to know what it should be. In 1992 when Disney finally opened a resort in Europe, it was called Euro Disneyland. In 1994 (maybe in case anyone would be confused where they were) it became Euro Disney Resort Paris. 2002 came Disneyland Resort Paris. And today, it is Disneyland Paris. Or Parc Disneyland. Actually, it's Disneyland Paris the resort, or Parc Disneyland, the park.

Even they don't seem to know. Here are two different entrances to the park, both leading into the same place. True one is French and the other is English, but they don't seem to be able to decide if it's Park or Paris. The Disney fans just refer to it as DLP - simultaneously covering "park" and "Paris" at the same time.

For much of its life DLP seems to have had some identity issues. The audience, however, comes from everywhere. While Disneyland Anaheim draws largely from southern California and Walt Disney World Orlando from all over the US (with some overseas visitors), the guests at DLP seem to come from all over Europe. Standing in line for Peter Pan, you might hear some German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, Polish, and probably at least a few languages you won't recognize. There's also a bit of Chinese and even Japanese.

The sheer linguistic diversity of the park is staggering, especially on Easter Week when the crowds peak and mill all around you. Disney has done a good job of keeping up with the languages, hiring cast members who speak both French and English and often at least one other language, and providing brochures in six languages.

It also has gone and fitted one of its auditoriums with headphones tunable to five different language channels so that if you can't follow the French narration, perhaps one of these other ones will work.

Every seat has a set of these to let you watch the show.

But translation gets more complex when it's live, and simultaneous translation is both exhausting for the translator and a wildly expensive skill to have working 12 hours a day so Disney doesn't do that in the shows. In the "Stitch Live" show where an escaping Stitch talks live from his spaceship to children in the audience, they alternate between English and French shows.

Which kind of works, except that Stitch doesn't know his Welsh and Scottish names, so when a kid says his name is Carwyn, Stitch asks him to repeat it three times before giving up and saying "Welcome to Carin from Wales!"

Communications also extends beyond language and names.  Humor and spontaneity become incredibly hard to do at DLP with its multicultural audience. Germans, French, and Brits don't really share the same sense of humor.

DLP's saving grace is the shared common culture of Disney mythology. People arrive already knowing the Little Mermaid and Snow White and Rapunzel, whom they've seen on screen at home in their own language. With enough references to these links, the experience holds together for any culture that has been exposed to the Disney stories, allowing people to draw from much more than just what they are seeing during the day in order to build richer experiences.

Nowhere else but at DLP have I seen such a diversity of people from completely different cultures sharing the same experience. They walk through the turnstiles, step onto Main Street, USA, and explore different lands. They eat popcorn and hot dogs, meet Mickey Mouse, ride the Mississippi steam boat through the bayou.

And here I can see the French critic's objection. Disneyland is a slice of not just America but of Americana. It's folklore, history, culture. Plopped into the middle of the French countryside, it not only attracts the French to enjoy it, but invites people from all over Europe to come to France and see America.

Ouch.

Prejudice, Part II

When I rebooted my Disney addiction by taking my niece (12) and nephew (8) to Walt Disney World in 2011, they were shocked that kids not that much younger than them were riding around in strollers. We saw kids stuffed into strollers with gangly arms and legs not even fitting, dragging on the ground as their parents pushed them through the park.

Now I'm no parent, so I don't know if these kids were 5 or 6 or even 10 years old, but clearly they were able to walk. Have we gotten so lazy as a society that even kids that age, known for their boundless amounts of energy when excited, can't go to Disneyland on their own two feet?

I started looking at stroller occupants when I visited Japan. While Japan has its fair share of strollers, the kids never seemed more than 2 or 3 years old there. And even then, most of them ran along in the park on their own.

My first reaction, of course, was to condemn the parents who let older kids ride in strollers, as well as developing a fair amount of contempt for the kids themselves. I stewed in this holier-than-thou attitude for several trips, watching these lazy big kids kick back with their giant sodas and thinking of their future lifetime of fitness issues and weighing down our health care system.

But a lightbulb went off around the 289th time I encountered this site in the US. Disneyland is the ONLY place where I see kids this old in strollers. I don't see them in the mall, or the city park, or Safeway. Kids everywhere else in America were just like those in Japan - riding around in strollers until the age or 2 or 3, then walking around on their own.

So what's happening at Disney? Walking. Lots and lots of walking.

On an average day at Disney, a person taking a sane loop around the park can expect to clock 6-10 miles. This accounts for all the zigzagging through lines, doubling back to get a churro, running to catch a parade. If that person isn't sane - like if they were me and running around gathering Fastpasses in both parks in order to skip lines - they can expect to do 10-15 miles a day. Many people spend consecutive days at Disney, so this easily gets to 20 or 30 miles on a trip. (Sidenote: one day I will go on a weight loss camp, and it will consist entirely of spending all day in the park for a week. No churros or turkey legs.)

No normal kid is able to handle this amount of walking, probably not until they're into their tweens. If a parent wants to make sure their family gets to experience the entire park, they need to bring or rent equipment to make this possible. With the park opening at 8am and closing at midnight during peak hours, kids are already up early and down late. Mealtimes are disrupted and overstimulation is everywhere. Better use the stroller to save energy where possible, so they can enjoy all that the park has to offer.

This makes a lot of sense to me, but it doesn't explain what's happening in Japan.

I've been to Disney Tokyo about 10 times now, and I don't think the Japanese kids are as tuckered out from their walking as the American kids are from their sitting. I do notice lots of Japanese families just sitting in the shade on their picnic blankets, waiting for a parade or just letting the kids play games with each other. They're not crisscrossing the park seeking Dumbo for the third time.

And therein lies the difference. Americans have created a society of doers - we value getting things done and we'll move mountains to get to the bottom of that list of things we want to do. We'll facilitate our children getting those things done too, in whatever ways we can. They might be asleep between Small World and Peter Pan, but by golly they will get on every single one of those rides before the end of the trip.

There are some very different values at work here. I'm not making any judgements (for a change) about what's right and wrong. But it's possible to be the parent who makes sure your kid does everything there is to do, or to be the parent who goes at your kid's pace, even if that pace means missing most of the available experiences.

The strollers with big kids don't look like diabetes-creating machines to me at all any more. They're an expression of these values we've formed as a society - about maximizing experiences, about choosing more rather than less, about making sure the pack keeps moving together at the speed of the fastest rather than the slowest member. These values have helped us achieve an awful lot of things as a society, but it leaves a gnawing feeling in my gut about how we got here.

Too philosophical for a Disney blog? Let me know if I should be covering Disney snack foods in the next entry. I hear Disneyland Paris has Nutella-filled Mickey Mouse bread rolls.

Looking forward to these snacks. One of many examples found on one of many Disney food blogs. 

What's Experience Design?

I went down to LA last week. It was kind of a tour of all my old haunts growing up in Los Angeles. We stopped for a few days in Ojai where had I attended astronomy camp when I was 16. I introduced Rob to the La Brea Tar Pits (literally "The The Tar Tar Pits," our tour guide translated for us) where mammoth bones were till being dug up under the busy streets of Los Angeles. And we made a stop at Universal Studios as well as my favorite past and present haunt, Disneyland.

I haven't been to Universal Studios Hollywood since I was a kid, and they've really expanded and spiffed up the place. They've got some of the most state-of-the-art motion simulator rides anywhere, including one where you enter Springfield with the Simpsons for a wild ride through Krustyland, and another where King Kong and dinosaurs attack your backlot studios tour tram. The rides are all beautifully done.

The Despicable Me Minion Mayhem ride doesn't open until later this year, so I paid $84 for my Universal Studios annual pass optimistically hoping that I can return later when the Minions arrive. It seemed like a total bargain. The Disneyland annual pass I bought last August - the price for that was $669. Yep, you got that right. $669. Almost eight times more than what I paid for an equal number of days at Universal studios.

What in the world is Disney doing that Universal is not to warrant such blind fork-over-my-money loyalty?

Janitor cart at Disney.

Disney is one of those very rare companies in the world that understand they are creating an experience rather than a product or a series of products. To execute Walt's vision of creating the "Happiest Place on Earth," the Disney company treats a visit to the park as a single cohesive magical experience rather than a piecemeal trip to rides and attractions. That means all the details, from the cast member costumes to the choice of bathroom tiles, every touch point the guest sees has been thoughtfully designed to create the sense that you have left your everyday world and gone to a place where everything is different, beautiful, magical.

So on California Screamin', a roller coaster in the nostalgically-themed Paradise Pier section of California Adventure, the ground underneath the roller coaster isn't asphalt, it's beach sand and reeds because Paradise Pier is the re-creation of an early American boardwalk, the kind commonly found in turn-of-the-century California beaches. They carry this theme through the landscaping, the buildings, the lettering advertising Disney's obiquitous (and mysteriously large) turkey legs. Even the janitor pushcart is themed. The long lines for Toy Story Mania are cooled by lazily rotating wooden ceiling fans.

They didn't build the coaster on sand, but it sure looks like they did.

Meanwhile, over at Universal Studios, guests who were hot waiting in line outside of Shrek's castle were treated to an industrial fan plunked on the concrete path to cool them down. And once they got inside Shrek's castle, they walked through passages which looked remarkably like a DMV corridor before they got into the themed ride.

Just what I think the inside of Shrek's castle looks like.

Disney is so thorough in thinking through each step of the experience that even their emergency protocols take the guest experience into account. Emergencies like fires. While I was at Walt Disney World a few years back, a fire broke out at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Orlando. This was a place where little girls were transformed every day into princesses by a legion of ladies-in-waiting who help them with dresses, hair, make-up, shoes, and most importantly, the attention and royal treatment that every princess needs. As I was talking to a mom waiting for her daughter to come back out, we noticed a subtle but sudden change of pace as the ladies in waiting quickly and efficiently gathered up their young charges and took them outside. The adults waiting in the store were evacuated by the staff.

What was magical about watching this is that the little girls hardly noticed. Their ladies-in-waiting stayed in character, keeping their voices gentle and even, bringing out magic wands and picture books, sitting under trees with the children, and reading to them while the fire department showed up and put out the electrical fire. With sirens completely off.

This type of coordination doesn't happen by accident. It happens because Disney had hired someone (probably a team of someones) to think very long and hard about the experience those little girls parents wanted for their princesses, and then made sure there were plans in place to preserve that experience from beginning to end.

"Design" is one of those newfangled terms people often don't agree on. Some people think it's about nice elegant curves, or extra functions that didn't exist before, or the right color on a phone. I think it's all of that but more than that. "Design" is taking that extra step in thinking about what it is you're doing - really taking the time to figure out what the vision is and how it fits into the world people want to have.

In the end, Disney's rides aren't eight times better than Universal Studio's. There aren't eight times more of them. But as a guest, the eight times more that I pay for my annual pass goes towards a kind of guarantee that I am buying a different kind of experience - the kind experience that requires planning what the bottom of a roller coaster looks like, and what happens if a blow dryer catches fire on my little girl's special day. That's worth $669 a year.

Prejudice

A Disney trip is not for the weak. In the section titled "The Vacation that Fights Back," the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World writes "Visiting Disney World requires levels of industry and stamina more often associated with running marathons." Pedometers regularly rack up over 10 miles of walking every day at Disneyland. And since I (like many others) do the doubling-back-repeatedly strategy to avoid long lines, every full day I've spent in the Disney parks has been marked by 11 to 15 miles of walking. The Unofficial Guide also recommends that families train for this by going for longer and longer walks prior to their arrival at the parks, just so they can have the stamina to see what they want to see.

But the tourists are fighting back against this vacation.

I just returned from Disneyland Anaheim and was struck by the number of people I saw in scooters. A family of four adults and a child zoomed by me, nearly knocking me down on the sidewalk as they sped towards their restaurant. All four adults were rotund, with no noticeable necks and legs that came to small, clearly under-used feet. One scooter had a very large round child on a lap, clearly learning the ways of a life of not walking. Inside the park, scooters sometimes seemed so prevalent that it felt like a scene out of Wall-E.

It's hard not to feel a little prejudiced. Just walk a few blocks, I would think resentfully. It's not like you can't use some exercise. After two days and 24 miles of Disney, my feet and legs ached and it felt like I was paying a price that these scooter people somehow were exempt from. They went everywhere I went - in stores, in restaurants, on rides. To deepen the wound, they didn't even have to stand in line at Disneyland, which was built before the Americans with Disabilities Act was instated in 1990 and had narrow lines that didn't accommodate wheelchairs and electric vehicles. They just scooted up to the ride and got a hand-written pass that told them when to return. Then they zoomed off to shop or eat or just sit in the shade until their return window came up. Meanwhile, I had to stand in line, being told by friendly yet firm cast members to get off from sitting on the railing to rest my feet.

A family gets their special-access pass from a Cast Member.

I felt resentment - oh yes. And laid on the judgement heavily, at least in my own head. These lazy people should just get off their fat bums and suck it up like the rest of us. Sore feet is part of the experience, and if they're too lazy to walk it maybe they shouldn't be here.

But then I started talking to them, and immediately and with much shame I realized how incredibly prejudiced I had been.

People are on scooters because it makes it possible for them to be in the park with their family. Weight doesn't just make walking more work, but often exacerbates existing conditions and comes with its own host of other physical ailments that make even a mellow 5-mile walking day something of an impossibility. It's not even all about weight. Arthritis, back problems, even something as simple as chafing will keep you from keeping up with your teenagers. One woman in her 60's lamented to me that she can't sit or stand for any length of time because of her back. So she drives the scooter, and then sometimes switches out and lets one of her grandkids drive it while she walks.

And once I started talking to people, I started to see them. Actually see them, not just with my prejudices. Young and old, overweight and thin, in groups of friends or families or even on their own. Enjoying the park, just as I was, finding ways around their limitations. Limitations I was lucky enough to not understand. I wondered what limitations put them in scooters, and then reminded myself that it didn't matter.

I left this trip with a sense of humility and awe at what we've managed to achieve as a society. Certainly America has issues with its weight, and this is something we'll need to figure out before we can get our health care costs under control. But we have also managed to pass laws and build systems that allow people to stay together and experience a physically demanding park despite their own disabilities. I'm awed by the silver-haired grandmother keeping up all day with her grandkids, by the ride designers who have made it possible for a paraplegic to hang-glide on Soarin', by the cast members of Aladdin who thought it was a good idea to have a woman in a wheelchair dancing along with everyone else on stage a la Glee. I'm awed by the spirit and cohesiveness of families that figure out how to stay together on a 10-mile park day despite crippling arthritis.

I hope the humility is something I remember next time my "J" side kicks in with a rude prejudice. It's so easy to just assume and blame when that healthy-looking young man takes the handicap parking space at the gym. But it might just be time for me to get off my lazy ass.

A Whole New World

So this morning my house was filled with the unhappy crescendo of "No!!! NOOOOOO!!!!" NOOOOOO!!!" Followed by much swearing and other things that shouldn't be repeated. What was the cause of this crisis? I had received my "Introducing MyMagic+" pamphlet from Walt Disney World, and was being shoved into A Whole New World, like an unwillingly genie into a new yucky bottle.

The arrival of this pamphlet caused much discontent.

For those of you who aren't up on Disney news, MyMagic+ is the new streamlined ticket/payment/FastPass system that uses RFID wristbands to govern your park experience. It allows Disney to track traffic patterns, adjust their staffing to accommodate the load, and generally create a more seamless experience.

Except.

Mental NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! echoing in my head...

This is my new planning nightmare because of the FastPass+ system. Instead of going into a park on the day of and collecting tickets that take you to the front of the line, you now get to book them 60 days in advance. Now, it's I'm a self-confessed OCD planner. Ninety percent of the arguments in my house happen because I think January is a perfectly reasonable time to book hotels and buy flights for Christmas because that's when you have the most options. Get a jump on the crowds. Grab those tickets before they're gone. The reservation system is open, and people like me get the most out of it while the slackers lose out. SUCKERS!!! Countries have been invaded with less planning than I put into my trips. I am a Planner. 

It seems like I should love that FastPass+ will let me grab FASTPASSes a whole two months ahead. So what's missing here?

Planners (at least, planners like me) don't plan because we want to. We plan because we feel like we have to. Not planning will put you behind all the other people who got their act together early, sat down, and figured out what they wanted. The fact that FASTPASS planning wasn't possible until the day of the park relieved me of one of the burdens of planning. OCD planners like me get to enjoy very little spontaneity, and the Disney vacation was one of them. Now they are taking it away, and I am very, very sad.

There's also a certain joy in the anticipation that builds the morning before a day at the park. You sit at breakfast with your family talking about the rides you want to do that day. You stand at rope drop making plans - "I'll run for the California Screamin' rope drop while you make a beeline for Toy Story Mania." All of this builds a sense of excitement for the day, and is part of the park experience. 

I have a hard time imagining getting that excited sitting down with my family 60 days before our visit planning what we're going to do. I have a hard time imagining that I can get my family to even participate in this conversation. Two whole months before the visit is not when anyone knows what time they want to ride Space Mountain. 

SO. Here we are now in this Whole New World. I'm not closed to the possibility that it will be wonderful. Some people online say that they love sleeping in knowing that they can still get on rides because they don't have to get their FASTPASS before it's gone. I'm sure my husband will love that. (The sleeping in, not the planning 60 days early.) But it is a game changer with some pros and what I think are many cons. There are a ton of bugs to be worked out.

Of course, this means that it's a whole new research project for me. New technology challenges, new behaviors, new systems of crazy-fan behavior, different constituencies all trying to grapple with this behemoth of a system to figure out how to make it work for them. Time for me to plan my Disney World research run.

Lingerie fun

I've been a little Japan-focused, I know. You play with the cards you're dealt, and last year I was dealt a whole lot of Tokyo. It's now 2014, and I'm looking forward to trips to Disneyland Paris and Disney Hong Kong. I'm inexplicably excited about Hong Kong, even though the fan buzz says it's the least exciting one. But they serve tea in the English tradition, which seems a great idea in a place where you may be very tired, and I do wonder how they deal with the Chinese element. Perhaps over Chinese New Year it'll be fun to go.

Before I get into that though, I just need to share one more Japanese Disney item. This one came to me via my fellow humanity-watcher Annie, to whom I'm very grateful for unearthing such a gem. I don't know what to make of it, but I thought I'd share and see what you think:

Weird, right? Or more accurate, my original thought was ohmygodwhatthehell?!??

But then I stopped and really thought about it, and I can't decide if it's actually a bad thing. I mean, presumably these sexy little lingerie items (or, as a British friend once called underwear - "smalls") are meant for adults. And sexy stuff for adults should be perfectly fine.

Princesses are sexualized everywhere else as well, but for kids it's a different issue. Shouldn't that disturb us more? It's not even a thing of the past. The controversial transformation of Merida into babelicious-Merrrida in the most recent Disney princess movie was just yet another example in a long line of sexualized princesses sold to little girls. 

The Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Orlando does a brisk business putting make-up, nail polish, and high heels on little girls as young as 3. Fan sites tell parents to book as far as 180 days in advance to make sure they can have the magical transformation of their daughters. 

In Japan the princesses I've seen have tended to be young women. Sexy, yes, but women. 

And the little girls - well, they seem more like little girls. In Alice outfits made of breathable cotton. And sneakers.

It makes me wonder whether the princess lingerie is disturbing only to us because our little girls love princesses and ewwwwww little girls in princess lingerie. But that's our issue and not the Japanese. Meanwhile we're putting nail polish and make-up on 3 year olds ewwwwwwww!  So here's the conundrum: what's actually more disturbing?

By the way - for my European friends with children - we're planning a trip to Disneyland Paris to check out how the Europeans do Disney. Wait - what am I thinking - you don't need children to have fun at DLP. Anyone at all - either first or third week of April. Interested in joining?