Touring Plans Redesign

I’m a big fan of Touring Plans. It’s a mobile application that gives advice on how to miss most of the lines. We’ve used it regularly at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World as a family and it’s works really well.

They are taking a new pass at the design for their app. They posted a work-in-progress of the new proposed layout which inspired me to take my own design pass tonight.

Here is their new work-in-progress design (which I think is already quite nice):

touring-plans-redesign

And here is my suggestion:

Touring Plans Design Suggestion

A few changes I’m suggesting in this design:

  • First, I moved the search bar above the fold. This means when you drop into the app the search bar would be off the top of the screen but you’d find it when you scroll up a bit. I think that’s pretty standard and cleans up the first impression (as you don’t use search all the time, but it’s nice to have when you need it).
  • Then I tried to clean up the header by using icons instead of text where feasible. So the family gets an Adult and Kid icon. I also tweaked the layout of the text while attempting to present the same information.
  • I made the notes have an easy icon to tap to edit, and changed it’s background to make it pop
  • For each venue, I tried to make the “blocks” as clean as possible and make a visual representation of the time of attendance down the right side of the block. Each block is the same size vertically unless something is expanded.
  • For each attraction, I had a goal to remove the duplicated words “arrive” and “leave” from each entry, instead hoping that a graphic layout could make the meaning clear. This is the part I feel the best about.
  • For my money, the duration isn’t 100% needed since it’s pretty easy to get a sense of duration now that the time is laid out so clearly, so I faded it back to 50%. I think it would probably look even better gone completely but this is a decent compromise.
  • I removed extra horizontal lines and instead used light shading on every other attraction to keep them divided up.
  • For the “More Info” buttons, I used a Right Filled Arrow to indicate “More” and then rotate it to a Down Filled Arrow when tapped (and the information appears below the arrow)
  • I proposed expanding the box rather than a pop over for the “More Info” windows. We have unlimited vertical scroll area and this lets you open up as many “More Info” buttons as you want in case you need the information handy. I also think it looks cleaner.
  • Overall, tried to keep to the fewest number of size and weight variations as possible. Each size has a consistent meaning as much as possible.

I hope the fine people at Touring Plans like some of these ideas.

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