Problem statement: You are asked to build an app for a new theme park in Dubai. How will you go about designing it?

Let’s structure this article as an interview simulation.

To scope out the problem, I’d like to ask a couple of clarifying questions:

Me: I want to first understand what kind of an amusement park this is. Is it like a water park or is it like Disneyland?

Interviewer: It is more like Disneyland and very out there as most things are in Dubai.

Me: Do we have any resources, budget, or time constraints for the project?

Interviewer: Not really. The park is almost ready so we have about 4 months to launch the app.

Me: Great, thanks for clarifying. Now that I have these answers in place, I’d like to start with what our goals are for this Theme park app, understand the different user personas, deep dive into their pain points, and then create solutions for them. Lastly, I’d like to prioritize the solutions we will build that help us achieve our north star metric. Sounds good?

Interviewer: Sure, let’s go ahead.

Me: People, especially kids, associate Theme parks with happy places. It is a place to create memories and it bears a lot of nostalgia for the adults. The goal of building the Theme park app is to create virality by delivering a great experience that is monetizable.

The following personas come to mind:

• - Parents: Ramesh, an IT professional, is traveling to Dubai with his wife and two kids. It is their first international vacation as a family. Riya is 8 and Rohan is 11. Riya and Rohan haven’t experienced a theme park before but are extremely excited about the Rapunzel castle and the water rides.
• - Teens: Arjun 18, is in Dubai with his family and cousins. It’s his 18th birthday and his cousins have decided to celebrate it at the theme park. Arjun loves thrilling rides, be it a loop coaster or drop rides. He is already creating a buzz about it on Instagram.
• - Vendors: Alisha, 30, has been living in Dubai for over 12 years and is very fascinated with how the city has turned itself from a desert into the marvel that it is. She has translated her passion into a souvenir shop at the new theme park where she showcases the most authentic artifacts. She wants people to appreciate the experience and store that memory in the form of souvenirs.

With the given context I would like to prioritize the personas:

Both Ramesh and Arjun are tourists who want to have a memorable experience. Ramesh would talk all about it and recommend it to all his other friends who are also parents. Arjun is already bragging about all the rides he is going to take to all his friends all over Instagram. Therefore, these two seem like a perfect fit. Vendors are very important to the ecosystem but once we have enough traction, we could solve for them. Are you with me so far?

Interviewer: yeah.

Now going through the user journey let’s figure out a few pain points that the users experience:

• - Theme parks have hundreds of rides and experiences. Users discover them as they navigate through the park. Time is short and never feels enough to cover everything. That FOMO is real. But actually, nobody wants to take every ride, they just don’t want to miss out on the ones that they would love.
• - Theme parks span multiple acres and navigation is almost always an issue. There are digital TV screens tucked in somewhere that need their navigation to get to. Since the overall process is more exploratory, people spend more time navigating inefficiently than experiencing all that the theme park has to offer.
• - Discoverability is yet another challenge. When traveling with family, there are so many people with different needs at the moment that it almost feels overwhelming to anyone who is managing the others. A cranky child that probably just wants to eat donuts cannot be pacified by Italian food that parents find in the vicinity.
• - The parks especially during the peak travel months are crammed which translates to long lines everywhere. After spending time trying to find the ride they want to take, people spend time standing in lines waiting to experience it. Also, there are details you get to know about the ride probably after actually experiencing it or just before experiencing it, that could have been a crucial factor in determining whether this was something you wanted to do or not.
• - After a thrilling ride, you are chased by people who try to sell you, a photo of you experiencing the ride. There is always just one shot, which may or may not be perfect and you have to talk to the vendor to even see the actual picture before you decide to pay for it.
• - The experience is worth sharing but not necessarily brag-worthy. The castle is beautiful and magical but how is it any different from Disneyland? Also, there may be some very cool facts about a ride but either you don’t get to know about it or if you do there is a tendency to forget.

Solutions:

The app should have the basic functionalities of booking a ticket online, showcasing a list of all the experiences. These are table stakes and I wouldn’t spend too much time talking about them. Our north star is virality and a great user experience and therefore I’d like to discuss solutions centered around it.

• - Create an itinerary for the users - The app could take in a few parameters like rides they like, experiences they enjoy, cuisines they prefer, number of people and create a recommended itinerary that is most ideal for them. The itinerary would optimize for time, route, and experiences that feel best at a particular time. It could then pre-book tickets/ slots for rides, and experiences at that time which saves time for the user.
• - Navigation and discoverability - The app should offer navigation around the park, highlighting surrounding places and experiences. People could tap on them to get details on the ride or experience and also book tickets. If the rides are crowded, it could suggest an ETA of how much time it would take to get a ride. The users can choose to do something else meanwhile instead of waiting in line. Users also can explore things nearby like a coffee shop, restaurants, or the bathroom. This would help users discover things along the route.
• - The users could have their photos taken as they do the rides, which could directly be shared on the app. The user could go through them, select the ones they like, and pay to get them. Initially, this could be free for a couple of photos and then monetized.
• - Taking inspiration from the AR experience at Apple headquarters, the app can leverage AR to showcase the cool things about rides and experiences as the user overlays the phone’s camera on them. Things like the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. There could also be spots inside the park where users could come into the frame with some cool characters. For example, This is me singing with Moana.
• - Sharing and Referral: The users could get rewarded for inviting their friends to the app. Users could get rewarded with free rides or a chance to pick up their favorite toy from the souvenir shop. The rewards feel so tangible that users are more likely to share and create virality.

The next step is to prioritize these solutions on a roadmap. The approach I'd like to take is using the RICE framework.

Feature #2 is table stakes for users to have a great experience. #4 is a hero feature of the app that not only differentiates but delights. It would also boost shareability. #5 would leverage user excitement to further drive word of mouth. #1 and #3 are good to have. Ideally, we could wait a couple of months to get enough data about what people are enjoying and then build a good recommendation engine to plan the itinerary. For #3 There could be concerns around clicking photos without consent and tagging them to each user based on their spots. This is also a hard computer vision problem that would require quite an effort to solve.

In short, we should start with #2, #4, and #5 with parallel efforts to get data around experiences people love. #1 could then come in as V2.

Metrics to measure:

• - Number of users downloading the app and creating an account
• - Average time spent on the app between T-3 days and T+1 days
• - Number of people sharing their photos on social media
• - NPS