Transcript

Chris LoSacco: I thought you were gonna say “I’m not great at amusement.”

Gina Trapani: I’m not great at amusement parks.

(Both laugh)

Gina: I’m probably not great at amusement either.

[POSTLIGHT INTRO MUSIC]

Gina: Hell, world. Welcome to the Postlight podcast. I’m Gina Trapani, I am the CEO of Postlight, and Chris is back from vacation. I am joined by the president of Postlight, Chris LoSacco. Hey, Chris.

Chris: (Laughs) Hey, Gina. I’m back.

Gina: Welcome back. I kept the business running while you were on vacation.

Chris: Yes you did, and thank you.

Gina: (Laughs) Yeah.

Chris: I hope everyone has internalized our vacation episode, because I did not check anything.

Gina: We’re very serious about vacation. I took it as a personal, my job to protect you as much as I possibly could. I can’t always, and same thing when I go on vacation, you do the same for me. And sometimes…

Chris: This is one of the benefits of working as a partnership. I didn’t open up Slack on my phone. I didn’t really look at email, even. It was… it was bliss. And thank you.

Gina: Good for you. There’s an autoresponder, Do Not Disturb… it’s a wonderful thing. We have an agreement. I’ll send you a text message if I need you. That’s happened. Same with me.

Chris: It has happened.

Gina: Sometimes you do have to… but there’s, you do have to define the escalation method of communication. (Laughs)

Chris: Because if there’s no escalation method, then you have to check. The beauty of saying “We’re gonna text each other” is that I don’t have to check. ‘Cause I know that if there is something that really does need my attention, you’re gonna reach out to me.

Gina: Exactly, exactly. I am very happy that you’re back. I am also very much looking forward to my vacation. But I want to hear about your vacation. ‘Cause you didn’t really take a vacation. 

(Both laugh)

Gina: As we’ve established.

Chris: Well, yeah. It was a family trip to Disney.

Gina: Yes.

Chris: And…

Gina: Which is hard work.

Chris: This is the thing. It was wonderful, we had a great time, I love spending time with my family. It was really great in so many ways. But going to Disney World is a part-time/full time job. Like…

Gina: Absolutely. For people who haven’t… like, so I didn’t grow up going to Disney World or Disneyland. So Disney World is in Florida, Disneyland’s in California. But just for… for anyone who hasn’t done Disney, let’s just set… like, what is Disney? Like, the Disney experience.

Chris: Yeah. So I am gonna… I am not, like, a Disney Person, capital D and P. So I will do my best to describe this environment, because it is… it is not just, like, one thing. It is an ecosystem that has carved out a large swath of land in Orlando, Florida. And so, Disney World is a collection of amusement parks. Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom. It is also a set of resorts. And there’s not just, like, one or two resorts. There’s probably a dozen, and they are scattered throughout the property. Some are closer to the park, some are a little further away. There’s different, like, tiers of resorts, they’re connected by different modes of transportation. So there’s a lot of places you can stay on the property. There are also… my understanding is, there are places you can stay, like, off the property that are not technically part of Disney’s resorts but are sort of tangentially connected. And then there are other Disney-sanctioned areas of things that are, like, recreation and entertainment. So, for example, they have an area called Disney Springs, which is like… kind of like a really big outdoor mall. Where you can go and shop and, you know, there are restaurants and there’s a bowling alley and there’s a movie theater, and it’s this… but it’s Disney.

Gina: Right.

Chris: Like, it’s part of the Disney transportation network, and you can get there. There’s something called Disney Boardwalk. It’s a world. It’s…

Gina: It’s a world. It’s this experience.

Chris: It’s called Disney World because it’s a world unto itself.

Gina: Yes. The Disney experience… it struck me… the marketing is, right, the tagline, correct me if I’m wrong on this, it’s “The Happiest Place On Earth.” 

Chris: Yes.

Gina: Right? So, the message is like, if you bring your children here… like, the marketing is just photos of young kids with these looks of absolute awe…

Chris: Pure joy. (Laughs)

Gina: …and ecstasy and joy on their faces, right?

Chris: Yes.

Gina: But the marketing’s for parents. Like, if you bring your children here, it will be the happiest experience… like, this is the happiest place on earth. It really struck me when I went, because I’m not great at amusement parks. Like, I just… standing in line in the heat… it strikes me as the opposite of the happiest place on earth? So I… (Laughs) 

Chris: (Laughs)

Gina: So, it’s just, it’s so interesting. But Disney does a lot to make this, like, a place for parents to be able to go and navigate and get their kids, like…

Chris: Yes.

Gina: …to go on the rides, and the food, and the whole experience, the Star Wars part is really interesting. Anyway. So, I just want to say, the Happiest Place on Earth, is big and a lot and requires a lot of energy and forethought and coordination to really have the full experience.

Chris: Yes. I mean, I’ll share my opinion. I think Disney mostly succeeds at that. It is almost unfathomable, the amount of work that has gone into… I mean, the park is like, I think celebrating its 50th anniversary or something close to it. So it’s been around for decades. But not just the amount of work to build and maintain the physical infrastructure, but the people. And when I say the people, it’s like, everybody you interact with is committed to this mission of making it magical. And it’s kind of unbelievable how well they succeed in that, to the point where, you know, we were walking between buildings in our hotel, and you would have construction workers who were driving on construction vehicles doing work on the property, like, waving hello!

Gina: Aw.

Chris: And saying “I hope you have a great day.”

Gina: Right.

Chris: And it’s like… it is impressive how thorough they make the experience. And it borders on a little too much, you know, when you go into a shop and you’re like “I need to buy toothpaste,” and they’re like “Hey!”

Gina: “Hey!!” Yeah.

Chris: “Hope you’re having an amazing day!”

Gina: For New Yorkers especially it’s very unnerving.

Chris: Right.

Gina: Everyone’s so happy and nice, you’re like, okay.

Chris: It’s a little much.

Gina: What’s the ulterior motive? 

Chris: (Laughs)

Gina: It’s a lot. It’s a lot to handle. Yes.

Chris: You’ve gotta know it going in, and you’ve gotta embrace it. And it’s like, pristine, it’s so well-maintained, everything is so clean…

Gina: Yes.

Chris: And there’s so many human beings in one physical space, and you’re like “Oh my God, is this going to be a disaster?” But it’s not!

Gina: It’s actually not.

Chris: It is intimidating to be in all these crowds, but like, it’s not dirty and there aren’t people misbehaving, so to speak. It’s also extremely accessible, which is really, really amazing, what they’ve done, where they… you know, if you are in a scooter or in a wheelchair or you have a walker, there are ways to enjoy the park that is not off to the side. They’ve just done such a thoughtful job designing the place and the experiences. I mean, everything. The rides, all of it. And you can enjoy it no matter what your abilities, and it’s tremendous. And so, there’s so much good about Disney. And again, I’m coming away from the trip thinking, like, “Wow, that was a lot,” but also, it was really great. We had some really great experiences. But… this is a software podcast, and a lot of the experience of Disney is now funneled through their app, their mobile app, called My Disney Experience.

Gina: How did that go for you?

Chris: (Laughs) 

Gina: Because it’s a lot! I mean, the whole thing is a lot, and you have a limited amount of time. You have a ticket for a certain number of days, right? And you’ve got a group of people, and they all have different things they’re interested in, right? And so, you kind of need a tool to navigate and to reserve and coordinate, right? And so, I want to hear about what you thought about the… what’s it called? The Disney Experience app?

Chris: My Disney Experience. 

Gina: My Disney Experience app. Mhm.

Chris: It’s not great.

Gina: (Laughs) Ladies and gentlemen, this is… 

Chris: (Laughs) I… you know.

Gina: When Chris LoSacco says “This is not great,” there’s some product criticism… some critique that’s going to happen. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Tell me about it.

Chris: Yeah. And I… you know, I can’t help myself. I feel like every interface I use, I’m critiquing in some way. 

Gina: Yeah. This is what we do.

Chris: Right. It wasn’t just me on this trip, though. Like, it was… I was talking to my dad, I was talking to my brother-in-law, I was talking to my wife. Like, we were all… it was just… the app has to try to do a lot of things, so I recognize that. 

Gina: Yeah.

Chris: It is not just, like, a single-purpose, “Get on this app to book your spot in line.” Like, it’s not just that. It’s everything. So, I get that. A tricky constraint to work within. But there are so many things, and they are not properly categorized. And so, it is just… like, this is my first bit of criticism. It is hard to get around in this app. It is hard to navigate and know, like, where do I have to go in here to find what I want to find? Like, for example, the way that Disney World works is that you book, when you’re going to one of the amusement parks, you book a ticket to the park.

Gina: Mhm.

Chris: And so, your day kind of orients around being in that park. If you’re going to get meals, or you’re gonna go on rides, or whatever… it’s like, you kinda can jump parks, they call it park-hopping. But for the most part it’s like, you go to Magic Kingdom and your day’s gonna be in Magic Kingdom. So you would think, when I’m experiencing my day, that should be front and center, because I’m in the park and I’m going to be doing that. But it’s not. Like, there was a small, tiny link on the home screen that’s like, “My Day.” And then you have to click that to jump over to the quote-unquote “main interface,” where it’s suggesting all of these things for you. And I was like… but why?

Gina: So when you fire up the app, the app has your ticket information, which means that it knows what day it is.

Chris: Yes.

Gina: It knows your location, so it knows that you are at the park. So it’s not like it doesn’t know that you’re at the park that you’re at that day. 

Chris: Right.

Gina: So it can bring you to where you are on its own. Yeah.

Chris: Right. It requires you to jump through a lot of hoops to, like, get to the right place.

Gina: Right.

Chris: Things are also named oddly, or not intuitively. And some of it is branding, right? Like, they have this service where they suggest what you should do. It’s called Genie. It has a little icon that’s the Genie from Aladdin. And so it’s like, okay, I wouldn’t necessarily think of that as Genie but okay, I can get on board with that.

Gina: Right.

Chris: But then there’s also a thing called the tip board? Which is where Genie is putting recommendations for you to do on the tip board. And that’s also where you look at booking what they call “lightning lanes,” which are the, you know, skip-the-line thing on the rides. It never made sense to me that the tip board is where I had to go.

Gina: (Laughs) Right.

Chris: And it tripped me up every single time, where I’m like “Where do I have to go? Oh, right, the tip board.” Which is just not intuitive. So there were a lot of choices like that, where it’s like, how do I get around? How do I navigate within the app? Like, how do I know that I’m looking at the right thing? There was also, another thing, small detail that tripped me up is the middle icon on the tab bar is a plus button, which I associate with posting something.

Gina: Add.

Chris: I’m gonna initiate a new thing.

Gina: Create new plans, yeah.

Chris: But if you click that plus, it actually gives you a sub-menu of a bunch of actions you could take. (Laughs)

Gina: (Laughs) Oh, interesting.

Chris: Like, go to the tip board, or order food. I forget some of the other ones. But it was like, I never clicked that button because I never mentally, I was never like “Oh I’m gonna add something,” you know what I mean?

Gina: I would expect, like, a hamburger menu to show me some menu.

Chris: Exactly.

Gina: Interesting, interesting. You could do a lot, right? You could order food and have it delivered, or pre-order food and have it be there when you’re…

Chris: Yes. And that’s actually pretty cool. Like, the fact that you can do that in the app. Because the alternative is, you’re waiting in lines. And so there was actually one of the days when we were in the Magic Kingdom, well, there was a very long line to get fries or something at one of the places, but there was no line for mobile ordering. And so I opened up the app, I ordered food, and it was ready in like, four minutes.

Gina: Yep. You just pick it up.

Chris: And I didn’t have to wait in line, I just walked up and got the thing, walked away. And it was like, “Oh. That was pretty nice.”

Gina: Yep.

Chris: But… good interfaces have an intuitiveness and obviousness to, like, how you do things, how you get around. And even though, I mean, I was only using this app for a week, but every day of the week I just bounced off of the structure and the navigation of the app. It was… things were not obvious to me. Like, where I should go to do something. It was consistently frustrating. 

Gina: When I went last year, I had a 9-year-old and a 76-year-old. 

Chris: Mhm.

Gina: It was, like, all different ages with very specific preferences about types of rides. And the Genie suggestions were actually pretty good. Like, the app actually knows a lot about you, right?

Chris: Oh, yeah.

Gina: Like, it knows ages, it knows location, it knows the park. They were pretty good. But I do remember being like, I don’t want this suggestion again. Like, I… or, we did this already.

Chris: Dismiss.

Gina: There were times I was like, dismiss. Don’t show this to me again. We already did this. I mean, the app could know, okay, you’ve already done that ride. There’s… it feels like there are opportunities for it to go further. But I have to say, in… you become a very intense user, ‘cause you’re there, right? In the moment.

Chris: You’re running your whole day off of this interface.

Gina: Right. So you have to learn it very quickly. And honestly, the better I… the more I figured out the app I found, like, the better my experience was, right? ‘Cause you can plan ahead, and you’re doing fewer lines, and the food is where you want to go, and you can say, like, “Oh, I have my 9-year-old who doesn’t love the super-scary big rides but actually loved It’s A Small World, he’ll probably like these other rides too that I don’t know about.”

Chris: Yeah. Don’t suggest Tower of Terror.

Gina: Exactly, exactly.

Chris: I wonder how much of this is missing features, and how much of it is implementation issues.

Gina: Mhm.

Chris: Because it did seem glitchy to me. We went to EPCOT, and then I would go back to the hotel, and it would say “Welcome to EPCOT” at the top of the screen. And I’m like…

Gina: Oh, interesting.

Chris: Is that a product problem? Or did someone just implement that wrong? And it was, like, an issue with the state in the app. Same thing with this Genie service that makes suggestions. You can upgrade it to Genie Plus.

Gina: Mhm.

Chris: Which lets you book the lightning lane skip-the-line thing. And the way that it works is, when you buy Genie Plus, you can buy it for any subset of your party. So you can buy it for everyone, you can buy it for just a few people…

Gina: That’s pretty nice, yeah.

Chris: Very nice. The way that my family did it is, we sort of split up… you know, one day I would buy it, one day my brother-in-law would buy it. And we would just… we would make sure that everyone was covered, the people who needed to be covered were covered. But there were many times where if I wasn’t the one who bought it, I would still get prompted, like “Hey, do you want to buy Genie Plus?”

Gina: Aah.

Chris: Even though I had it.

Gina: It’s like marketing, upsell marketing mechanism gone rogue. Yeah.

Chris: Exactly. Yes. Some data point was not connected…

Gina: Right.

Chris: …to say, “Oh, you’re already opted in, you don’t need to show this anymore.” 

Gina: And when that happens, you just feel like “Are you with me here?” (Laughs) Like, it’s annoying, right?

Chris: It’s annoying!

Gina: That you have to dismiss it and be like, “I already did this.”

Chris: Yes.

Gina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s such a big set of parks and experiences. How much of your time did you spend standing in the middle of Main Street in Disney World, getting run over by a parade with your face in your phone? (Laughs) Trying to figure out what the next… like, I’m interested in the… ‘cause I think the tool, the app to navigate this experience is a good thing. Like, I think it’s a good and right thing, ‘cause it’s just so overwhelming.

Chris: Yeah! 100%.

Gina: Especially when you’ve got so many people. But at the same time, it’s work, right? Like, you had your face in your phone a lot, right? 

Chris: A lot.

Gina: Trying to work out your next 3 to 4 hours. Right?

Chris: Right. You try to minimize it. Like, you try… because you have to be in the moment and be experiencing things, you know?

Gina: Yeah! Right. Right, right.

Chris: And it is kind of wild, when you’re walking down the street, it’s like “Oh, there’s a parade behind me.”

Gina: Right. (Laughs) Right, right, right. There’s like a full blown musical happening.

Chris: Yes. (Laughs)

Gina: Like, dancing, singing, trumpets. Yeah, exactly.

Chris: Right. Goofy’s waving at me, like let me step to the side so I can watch this.

Gina: Exactly. Let me just make sure that I book my next lightning lane, and is my food ready. Yeah. (Laughs)

Chris: Right. I will say, the app could do a better job of just getting you around.

Gina: Yes.

Chris: So that you don’t have to have it in front of your face all the time. And it does some of this, but like, ideally, it would be like getting directions… you know, if I have to go up to the Upper East Side, I can plug in, in Google Maps or Transit or Apple Maps, like here’s where I’m going, and it will give me the directions, and then I can kind of put my phone away. And only check it when I need to, you know, get off the subway or something.

Gina: Mhm.

Chris: It’s not like that. Even though I feel like Disney had… like, it will show you very precise locations.

Gina: Yes.

Chris: Even within the parks, where you are and where another ride is. And it is great that the maps, for the most part, load really quickly if you’re just looking at the map and you want to browse it, and there’s wait times for all the rides. Like, that’s really helpful. So it’s good. But it seems like an obvious next step should be, like, let me get directions. Right? Within a park, or if you know that I have dining reservations, prompt me to just get there.

Gina: Right. Ahead of time. 

Chris: Ahead of time.

Gina: Start walking, or hop on the tram. I don’t know if Florida has the tram or the AirTrain.

Chris: Between the parks and the resorts there are a lot of different transportation options. Right? There’s a monorail that connects some of the hotels and some of the parks. There are actually a few monorails, like a few tracks, so sometimes you have to connect to another monorail. We did make a mistake one night where we got on an express monorail that took us to the wrong spot. 

Gina: Whoops.

Chris: So that was not ideal. It’s like getting on the express… you know, the 4 when you meant to get on the 6.

Gina: Yeah. You just watch your stop blow by and you’re like “Noo!”

Chris: (Laughs) Yes. Right.

Gina: Yeah. Face in the window.

Chris: But then there’s also, like, the bus network is really good. Like, there are a lot of buses to get to a lot of different places. But it is also not obvious where they are and how to get to them. And they do a pretty good job of physical signage, but they could very easily represent that in the app, to get you to more places as a compliment to the physical signage. But it’s just not there. They also don’t do real-time tracking, which is not like… you know, strictly necessary. But it would be kind of nice, if you knew where your bus was and you could watch it come to the…

Gina: Yeah. Two stops away… I mean, we’re used to this in New York City, right? That’s, yeah.

Chris: Right. Or, the monorail runs pretty frequently, but sometimes it’s good to know there’s another one coming in three minutes, so I can skip this one. Right? And maybe we’re spoiled because that’s how we treat the subway, but like, it would be really nice to have real-time tracking, and just easier directions, you know? I’m at Magic Kingdom, and then I want to stop at my hotel, and then we’re going to go to Disney Springs. Like, lay out that itinerary for me.

Gina: Yeah. This was my experience. The transit thing was… when we went, we spent a couple of days and we were at a Disney hotel, and the first day it felt like we walked miles just to get to the gate and get through the gate and the whole thing. And on the second day, somebody was like “Psst! The monorail’s right there. It’ll take you wherever you want to go.” 

Chris: See?

Gina: I was like, “What?” I walked up, there was no one there, got on, it zipped me right to a part of the park that I hadn’t gotten to, and I was like “Oh, why…?”

Chris: (Laughs)

Gina: Like, I wish that the app had been like, “Hey, hop on the monorail!”

Chris: Right.

Gina: Like, it’s so much easier. They check your thing and you avoid the line. So it feels like that’s an area of improvement. I mean, there’s surely an entire product and engineering team dedicated to this app, right? I think… you know, it’s so useful, I think, for any product to just go with… like, somebody who’s never been to the park, or hasn’t been to the park for ten years, which is my experience…

Chris: Right. Same.

Gina: And just walk with them. (Laughs)

Chris: Yeah!

Gina: And see, like, what the experience is, from brand new eyes. It’s very difficult to do this when you’re in it, right? And when Marketing is coming to you and saying “Listen, we need to increase our Genie Plus sales. Make sure that that prompt shows up,” right?

Chris: Bingo.

Gina: And you put that on, right? And it’s like, just make sure… (Laughs) that someone who has purchased this, right? It’s so hard to go back and just be like “Let’s put ourselves truly in the shoes of a new user who has just downloaded this thing from the app store, has just laid down a lot of cash to have this experience with their children, it’s the happiest place on earth!” Right? Like, your quality of parenting’s on the line here.

Chris: Yeah. (Laughs)

Gina: (Laughs) And deal with the one hand with the kids and the cotton candy and the parents and the whole thing, and the app in your hand, and see… see how well it does. I mean, overall, though – it’s a pretty rich… I remember thinking “Wow, this app does a lot.”

Chris: No, no no!

Gina: Like, I didn’t expect that it did a lot. It unlocked our door at the hotel.

Chris: Yes.

Gina: It did all kinds of stuff. I was like, “This is a lot of functionality,” which I appreciated.

Chris: For the most part it’s good. Like, it is absolutely a net positive. We used it all the time. It wasn’t like “Oh, this is a piece of junk, we’re never going to look at it.”

Gina: Not using it wasn’t really an option. Like, in retrospect, I remember… especially with the lightning lane, booking, reserving, and food… like, it just wasn’t an option not to use it. It would have been a totally different day, in a bad way.

Chris: Totally different. I just want to go back to what you were saying before, ‘cause it’s such a good reminder, I think for this use case especially. But for a lot of use cases out there, a lot of platforms that exist. You get so deep in the weeds that you forget about the new, or new-ish user experience, right? How do you get in and get around when you are not looking at this app all day every day, like the development team is.

Gina: Yes.

Chris: And building it in as a regular part of the process. I’d be really curious to know if the team that’s maintaining this app does this, where they do… you know, every month, or even every couple of weeks, a subset of the team goes into the park with a new user, right? A fresh eyes user. And says “Let us watch you use this. Let’s have a day together, and let’s see where it works really smoothly and where it starts to break down, and what is not obvious to you.” Because I think you could catch some of these things. And, you know, for an app that does so much, you have to be ruthless about how you prioritize what gets in front of people when. And I think some of those things would surface if you put yourself in the shoes of the new user.

Gina: Yeah. I mean, it’s just so easy when you’re building a product, or when you’re working at a company, or when you’re part of a particular culture, that certain paradigms just become so normal to you, right?

Chris: Yes.

Gina: Like, the tip board… Everybody understands what the tip board is and how important it is, and like, when you say the tip board in this product team everyone’s like “Yeah, yeah.” And it’s like, “Where do we put this thing? We should put it on the tip board! Sure.”

Chris: Right. Everyone’s internalized it.

Gina: You know, ‘cause you’ve been looking at this and working on this for so long, everyone’s internalized the tip board, what the tip board is and the purpose of it, and it just… that makes total sense. But to… (Laughs) To a new user, it’s like “Wait, what? I can see recommendations, but also this other thing? What is this? Why are we calling this… is this tips? What does this mean?”

Chris: Right. Exactly.

Gina: Just help me get the thing.

Chris: For a fact, I know the app has a way to get directions. Within the park and between parks and between resorts and… like, I know that the app can do that. But I almost never used it, because it was never clear where to get there. And I know that if I talked to somebody on the team, they’d be like “Oh! You just do, you know, step A, step B, step C, and then you’ve got directions.” Like, “We support directions, what are you talking about?” But in reality, what I would do is I would jump over to Apple Maps and be like “I need to get directions to Disney Springs, what are my options?” And then I would go look in the physical space for a sign.

Gina: Signs, yeah.

Chris: So you’re totally right that you… things become so obvious to you because you’re working with them every single day. So you’re like “Oh! Then, yeah, we should… here’s where to do this, here’s where to do that, we already support all these things. Check the box in Jira, we’re good to go.” 

Gina: Right.

Chris: And you forget to step back and say “I have to come at this with fresh eyes.”

Gina: Yeah.

Chris: Because not everybody has… not everybody knows what the tip board means. Not everybody knows what Genie versus Genie Plus is. Et cetera, et cetera.

Gina: I think, you know, really mature apps that have so many features and do as much as this app does, has… there’s an inherent problem of “How do we organize this?”

Chris: That’s right.

Gina: “Where do we put everything,” right? Like, certain things are just not going to apply… I mean, certain things are universal, I think, to every visitor, like getting directions, or… I mean, maybe not! Maybe… not everybody is booking the Lightning Lane or buying a Lightning Pass or whatever it’s called. Like, there’s just so many permutations of things and services and parks and situations that people could sign up for that I think it’s hard to predict every situation. We see this happen a lot, right? Where we have platforms or products that are… have so many features that everything is sort of buried a little bit. Because not everything can be front and center all the time, right?

Chris: Exactly.

Gina: But the app does kind of have to… like, what you were saying about the park, right? It has to surface that automatically. You are here.

Chris: That’s right.

Gina: I can see you are in this context, so I’m gonna… I’m gonna come to you, versus making the user go to it.

Chris: The interface has to adapt. It has to be an adaptive interface. Because there is no navigation that will get everything right. You know? There’s just too many things.

Gina: Right. And the app, like I said, knows so much about you. Who you are, where you are, what you booked, your ages, what services you’ve already signed up for, and it should be able to adapt for those things.

Chris: Yes.

Gina: I’m a little worried that someone from the Disney team is going to listen to this show. If they are, please get in touch….(Laughs)

Chris: No, I’m excited!

Gina: I would love to talk to them!

Chris: Let’s talk to ‘em.

Gina: I would love to talk to you. Yeah, let’s… I want to hear, I want to hear more. Because I think that there is a whole sea of challenges in this product that we are not perceiving at all, as like… occasional visitors.

Chris: Oh, I’m sure. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think this app is, like, white-labeled for all the Disney properties around the world.

Gina: Yep.

Chris: So that’s another layer of complexity, where it’s like “Oh, this also has to work at Disneyland Paris.” And it’s like…

Gina: Yes.

Chris: Wow. It is a very tough product and platform challenge. If you’re listening and you work for the Disney Experience team, or you know somebody who does…

Gina: We would love to talk to you about this.

Chris: Please hit us up.

Gina: Well, I’m glad you’re back. I loved that you were taking notes on this app experience while you were on your family trip.

Chris: (Laughs)

Gina: ‘Cause you weren’t really on vacation. Or really away from work.

Chris: Right.

Gina: You were thinking about work. (Laughs)

Chris: That is a switch that is flipped in my brain that I cannot unflip, and I know it’s for you too. It’s like…

Gina: Absolutely. And our whole lives are mediated by some sort of digital experience. It’s just… you know, you’re definitely gonna have opinions about it.

Chris: That’s right. Even though it may sound like we are griping, we’re not. We actually like these challenges, we like talking about interface design when you’re trying to have an app that does a million things. That’s fun.

Gina: Absolutely.

Chris: We love… and our whole team, really, loves the challenge of thinking about “How do we make this as easy and intuitive and clear for users as possible, even if the complexity is off-the-charts.” So, if you’ve got a challenge like that, Disney or not…

Gina: Get in touch.

Chris: Please reach out. Hello@postlight.com is the way to reach us.

Gina: We love digging into these things, and hearing about it, and coming up with better solutions. If the Disney team is listening, good work. Also we want to talk about it. (Laughs)

Chris: Great job. Thank you.

Gina: Great job. For real. (Laughs)

Chris: We’re skimming the surface, but there’s so much good in your app.

Gina: It’s true. It’s true. Welcome back Chris, I’m glad you’re back.

Chris: Thank you.

Gina: Glad to talk about this. And, yeah. Get in touch, everyone. Thanks for listening. Hello@postlight.com.

Chris: Bye.

Gina: Bye.

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