Reimagining transportation within the Disney parks.
Duration
10 weeks
My Role
Visual + Exterior Lead
Date
March - June 2025
Disney’s Future In-Park Transportation Experience
DreamLine is a compact, self-driving electric vehicle designed to enhance the in-park experience at Disney. Equipped with climate-controlled seating and an interactive table, it helps guests navigate, rest, and enjoy entertainment, dining, and shopping on the go.
Personalization features and thoughtful accessibility make it a restful way for families to move through the park, empowering longer and more joyful visits.
My Role
As Visual and Exterior lead, I played a major part in defining the look and feel of the UI as well as the form of the vehicle's interior and exterior.
Collaborating with my team, I contributed to development of the UI throughout the entire process, including many rounds of iteration, prototyping, and creating the vector illustrations used in the UI.
I was also responsible for developing the exterior of the car, challenged to create a design that balanced the magic of Disney with the futuristic feeling we wanted to cultivate.
Overview
A magical new way to ride around the Disney parks.
Relax between Park activities in DreamLine's themed interior.
Choose a DreamLine pod completely themed after your favorite Disney character, from the exterior to the interactive table interface.
The center of the Dreamline experience, the interactive table, lets you plan your ride, stay immersed, and get entertainment while you ride.
Clean, intuitive UI provides infinite possibilities at your fingertips, all featuring your character of choice.
Primary Research
Getting around theme parks can be exhausting.
Long walks, intense heat, overwhelming crowds, and the pressure to make the most of every moment often turn what should be a day of fun and connection into an experience marked by exhaustion and frustration.
Shaded seating is rare, lockers are only at the front of the park, and in-park transportation is practically nonexistent. This fatigue is most heavily felt by young children, older adults, and families navigating the park together.
Families visiting Disney, especially with young children or guests with mobility challenges, face unique difficulties.
We defined this group as our target audience, as they most feel the pains of Disney's current transportation systems. To further investigate and understand the needs of these families navigating Disney parks, we conducted a survey of 129 individuals who had recently visited.
We particularly aimed to gather data from families with children, or including guests who have mobility challenges.
We listened to the experiences of parkgoers representing a variety of demographics in one-on-one interviews.
We conducted eight in-depth interviews with kids, parents, and grandparents to uncover personal challenges during their Disney visits.
Children frequently described feeling overheated and worn out from walking. Parents shared the difficulty of juggling everyone's needs, while older adults expressed struggles with keeping pace and finding shaded spots to rest.
On-site Research
Time to see what it's like for ourselves!
Our team visited Animal Kingdom, Disney’s largest park, kept an observation log, and conducted impromptu interviews and ethnographic studies.
What did we learn from our Disney expedition?
Large groups are hard to organize
Large groups struggle to balance preferences and adapt, often leading to overwhelming park criss-crossing.
By midday, even we were tired
Even though we are young, fit, healthy, and not even our target audience - we still felt drained by the middle of the day and looking for rest stops anywhere.
Standing in lines causes the most fatigue
While there are few opportunities for the line experience, we can still instill rest opportunities as they get from place to place, so guests get that moment of rest in the journey so they are energized for the next attraction.
Grandparents and kids need the most rest
By midday, grandparents rested in the shade and kids in strollers, noting that long walks, heat, and fatigue can quickly turn a magical day tiring.
Identifying Key Problem Areas
Our Solution
Introducing DreamLine!
From these insights, we designed DreamLine, a themed, family-sized, self-driving electric vehicle for guests to have a moment of rest while getting around inside of the parks. DreamLine is not just a ride, it’s a mobile experience.
The vehicle provides private, shaded seating for families, climate control, and an interactive table that lets guests plan their day, check ride times, order food, shop, and play games. Designed for comfort and ease, DreamLine helps guests feel more rested, connected, and immersed in every moment of their visit.
Compact Self-Driving Electric Vehicle
The size of a golf cart, and travels at walking speed on dedicated lanes within the park.
Themed Around Your Favorite Character
The entire experience will be themed around guests' favorite Disney character.
Comfortable, Climate Controlled Interior.
Private space to cool off with comfortable seating for 4-6 guests
Wheelchair Accessible
Removable seats to accommodate for wheelchairs and ramps.
Panoramic Windows
Allows guests to continue experiencing the parks' atmosphere while en route.
Built-In Storage
Storage for bags, strollers, wheelchairs, and more underneath the seats.
Interactive Table
Featuring park maps, scheduling tools, car controls, and on-board entertainment.
AI-Powered Planning
Helps guests optimize their park route and reach attractions with the lowest wait times.
Entertainment
Movies, songs, games, shopping, and dining features enhance the park experience.
Validating our solution…
Before jumping into development we needed to get further validation on our concept, to ensure that our initial proposal was still resonating with visitors. We surveyed an additional 87 members of our audience, who confirmed strong demand for a more accessible, comfortable and enjoyable way to navigate the parks.
64/87
Interested in using the vehicle.
42/87
Find the vehicle helpful.
Ensuring safety
While interest was high, survey responses also highlighted safety worries in crowded park settings. To ease these concerns, we considered…
Dedicated Lanes
For the DreamLine to seamlessly navigate the parks
Limited Fleet
To preserve the parks' magical atmosphere
Advanced Safety
To detect people and objects, move at walking speed, avoiding collisions
Interactive Table
The heart of DreamLine.
The interactive table is the centerpiece of DreamLine’s experience, giving guests full control of their park journey. Families can plan routes, shop, order food, and enjoy entertainment in one seamless, themed interface.
An exciting challenge to solve was that the UI had to be especially flexible, as guests are seated on either side of the table, potentially with different objectives.
Our team had to solve for orientation, screen sharing, and multi-widget functionality. We designed a fluid, customizable interface that lets guests interact with individual widgets independently or collaboratively.
Jumping into paper prototyping!
To explore these interaction patterns, we began with paper prototyping. This helped us refine the design, scale, and layout of widgets, and explore how physical interactions would translate across a horizontal surface.
We tested widget rotation, orientation switches, widget movement, and layout scaling, emphasizing simplicity and intuitive feedback.
Developing a strong visual identity.
Then, we jumped into Figma to begin developing the table’s visual identity. This required extensive iteration. Initially, we drew UI inspiration from popular platforms: Disney+ for entertainment, Spotify for music, DoorDash for food, Google Maps for navigation, and major retailers for shopping.
However, this approach quickly revealed an issue, each interface introduced its own complexity, diverging from our goal of a simple interaction. In response, we stripped down each feature to its essentials, offering just what guests need without clutter or distraction.
Widget
Reassessing and redefining our UI
A significant pivot point in the project came when our approach of modeling from existing platforms revealed a major issue: each interface looked different, and they were becoming overly complex. The widgets began to resemble an iPad, each with their own navigation and in-depth features.
This wasn’t our goal. We envisioned a more dynamic layout of simple widgets. In response, we stripped down each feature to its essentials, offering just what guests need.
Building towards visual consistency
To support our shift toward a more widget-based UI, we created style guides to ensure visual cohesion across all elements. These guides helped us maintain a consistent aesthetic while allowing flexibility in widget size, layout, and interaction. They became essential tools for aligning our team around a shared visual language and design direction.
Mid-fidelity UI
High-fidelity UI
Final UI Evolution
Under The Sea
Family Friendly Favorites
Finding Nemo
Family, Adventure
PG
Luca
Family, Fantasy
PG
Moana
Family, Adventure
PG
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Family, Adventure
PG
Finding Dory
Family, Adventure
PG
Luca
Family, Fantasy
PG
Moana
Family, Adventure
PG
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Family, Adventure
PG
Finding Dory
Family, Adventure
PG
Dream Rider Integration
The Little Mermaid
Ariel, a mermaid princess, makes a bargain with the evil sea with Ursula in an attempt to become human and win a prince's love.
Watch Now
Search
Home
Categories
Favorites
Rewatch
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Movies
For Ariel Lovers
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning
Show
•
12 Episodes
The Little Mermaid (2023)
Movie
•
1h 30m
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
Movie
•
1h 30m
The Little Mermaid
Show
•
1h 30m
Today’s Featured
Inside Out 2
Movie
•
1h 30m
Zootopia (2019)
Movie
•
1h 30m
Toy Story
Movie
•
1h 30m
Moana 2
Movie
•
1h 30m
User Testing
Testing the Interactive Table with a projector
How do you test on a screen that doesn't exist? We projected the UI onto tabletops for interactive testing, allowing participants to navigate the interface in real time.
They were able to experience opening widgets, scaling them, passing them across the table, or interacting with them independently. Feedback from testers confirmed the system’s intuitiveness and the delight of its features.
Testing the map prototype
Additional testing focused on the map feature, one of the most complex flows. Testers found the map to be intuitive and flexible to their needs, allowing them to easily understand, rearrange, and start their route.
Only minor feedback was advised, such as increasing touch targets and text sizes.
Vehicle Development
Exploring vehicles in The Villages
During our trip to Disney World, we visited a nearby community called The Villages, where we found golf carts to be a very common mode of transport.
We drew inspiration from the amazing variety of styles and models we observed, using their scale and seating arrangements as a foundation for shaping our own vehicle design. This visit helped us better visualize and understand design considerations for our project.
Creating the DreamLine Pod
We aimed to create a compact pod with an exterior design that seamlessly integrates into the Disney park environment. We drew inspiration not only from beloved characters but also from the worlds they inhabit and the surrounding landscape.
Creating the DreamLine Pod
While evoking a sense of magic and nostalgia, the vehicle’s sleek, futuristic form reflects the innovation of an autonomous EV, capturing both the wonder of Disney and the forward-thinking spirit of the park’s future.
A pod for every Disney fan.
Guests can choose the DreamLine pod themed around their favorite character inside and out, making each pod a unique and magical experience that resonates with a guest's interests.
Interior Design
The interior of the DreamLine pod is designed to balance comfort, accessibility, and engagement. It features a comfortable seating arrangement for up to four guests, centered around the interactive table.
Seats are removable for wheelchair accessibility. Panoramic windows offer sweeping views of the park. Under-seat storage provides convenient space for bags and strollers.
Branding
The unique magic of DreamLine
Rather than relying solely on Disney’s existing brand language, we expanded upon it to create a unique identity for DreamLine, one that could later be adapted for other parks or contexts.
Creating DreamLine's logo
The logo features a stylized path winding through a cloud and the “second star to the right,” an homage to Neverland’s legendary entry point - a beacon to reach a desired destination.
Integration and Logistics
How DreamLine fits seamlessly into Disney's future vision.
Disney has already made explorations into autonomous transportation in the parks.
Disney is already exploring autonomous vehicle solutions. In 2017, the company partnered with Navya and Local Motors to test self-driving shuttles.
What went wrong? The tests were abandoned due to limited maneuverability and poor sensor quality, causing safety risks that led to financial struggle.
Navya faced major setbacks due to technological limitations.
Shuttles had poor maneuverability and limited sensors, causing abrupt stops and minor collisions. Without side sensors, they struggled in crowded environments.
Los Angeles Times
Local Motors struggled with financial instability and regulatory barriers.
The company lacked long-term funding, leading to its shutdown, and faced legal disputes that further stalled development.
RCR Wireless News
Our vehicles would include 360-degree sensors, predictive AI to handle crowd flow, and lane-specific navigation to prevent congestion.
Dedicated Lanes
Charging Stations
Parking Zones
“CEO Bob Iger committed $60B to a 10-year expansion of Walt Disney World, including new attractions and park redesigns”.
According to Orlando Weekly. Our concept aligns perfectly with Disney’s long-term strategy. With the company investment to expand the park experience, there is a clear opportunity to invest in infrastructure updates, such as DreamLine lanes, charging docks, and themed integration points.
Envisioning a limited fleet
While DreamLine is there to provide a key service to families across the parks, we understand the need to limit the amount of vehicles due to overcrowding issues. To combat this, only a limited number of vehicles will be available for rental.
What's included?
Dreamline comes bundled with MagicBands for the whole family to unlock the vehicle, track reservations, and authorize purchases within the pod.
Guests can also choose to showcase their DreamLine vehicle in one of the park’s daily parades events turning their ride into a part of the show!
Dream Rider Includes
MagicBand Integration
Seamlessly connect your Dream Rider to your MagicBand for in-ride purchases, schedule updates, and personalized experiences.
Parade Participation Option
Make unforgettable memories, choose to join a featured Disney parade and see your family become part of the magic.
Guest 1
Name
Add name
Age
Add age
Give Ride Control
Those with ride control will be allowed to start or pause motion, approve in-ride purchases, and customize settings.
Accessibility Needs
Describe
We will provide assistance to those with wheelchairs and other mobile needs.
Ride control
During checkout, guests will choose which passengers are granted permission to control stops, purchases, and in-car settings to prevent kids from making unauthorized purchases.
Benefits
What does DreamLine offer to Disney?
Opens parks to a new market of visitors
More inclusive for people with limited mobility, young children, and older guests who before may have chosen not to come to Disney due to the physical strain.
Creates new monetization opportunities
Opens up upsell tiers for themed pods, exclusive character designs, in-app experiences, and parade participation.
Increases park dwell time
Reduces physical strain empowers families to stay connected, relaxed, and joyful, opening the door for longer, more fulfilling visits.
Strengthens the Disney brand promise
Reduces physical strain empowers families to stay connected, relaxed, and joyful, opening the door for longer, more fulfilling visits.
Increases in-park spending
Onboard access to food ordering, shopping, and special events may boost in-park spending, while improving guest satisfaction and retention.
Extends storytelling beyond rides
Transforms transportation into another touchpoint for IP engagement, with themed characters, games, and immersive content.
My reflections
The right team can make a project magical.
During this project, I really learned just how much of a difference the right team can make. A supportive team brings out creativity in each other in unexpected ways, working hard while having fun and pushing ourselves and our abilities to the limit. I can say with confidence that I improved many skills during this project, from UI design to prototyping to user testing, and I wouldn't have pushed myself so far if it wasn't for this team!
Rising to a challenge will teach you more than you think.
The greatest challenges I faced during this project were designing the interactive table widgets, and… creating almost all the UI illustrations. At first, I wasn't sure I would be able to successfully complete or even contribute to either task. But, I surprised myself by thinking up the widget-based UI concept, and I became an absolute master with Illustrator's pen tool at the end of the quarter. It was a lesson in faking it until I make it, or really, just having confidence in myself.
The Dream Team
