Family Zoo App
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! With the mobile Family Zoo experience, planning your trip to the zoo is easier than ever. The app is designed to make buying tickets a breeze, while the special events calendar and interactive map make sure you don’t miss a minute of fun during your visit.
Features
Purchase Tickets – Buy tickets on the go with just a few simple clicks
Special Events Calendar – See when special events are coming up, and see when these events are typically the least busy
Interactive map – Plan your day with a map that shows you were your favorite exhibits are, as well as current wait times at each exhibit
Low-Fi Wireframe
After deciding to focus on the three main features above, we began by producing a low-fi wireframe using Figma. For this initial wireframe, we used placeholder text and images so that we could focus on the wireframe's main purpose: showing how users can easily purchase tickets, view special events, and interact with the zoo map.
Clickable Prototype
Design Justification
When considering what features to highlight on this app, we decided to focus on two distinct areas: features that could be used before stepping foot in the zoo, and features that would be helpful during the user's trip. This way, the design would support the entire lifecycle of the user's zoo experience.
The ticket purchasing feature is designed to allow users to easily purchase general admission tickets, children's tickets, group tickets, and special events tickets. Tickets can be purchased in advance from anywhere in the world. By allowing users to purchase all types of tickets (general, special events, etc.) from one page, users do not have to navigate to different parts of the app to complete their transaction.
For users interested in attending one of the zoo's special events, they have a few options. They can purchase special events tickets along with their general admission tickets, as described above. They can also view the Special Events Calendar, which can be linked to from the homepage, as well as the bottom navigation bar. This calendar allows them to see what special events will be taking place on the day of their visit. Users can learn more about the event, and choose to add tickets to their cart from the special event's page.
We also included a feature that allows users to pick event ticket times based off of how crowded the zoo is expected to be at that particular time. When selecting a time from the dropdown box, users will see a note on the right-hand side that tells them if the time they are selecting is typically crowded or not. By giving users this additional information, we hope to help them better manage their experience, while also potentially helping to control crowds at these events throughout the day by suggesting users select off-peak attendance times.
Our final set of features revolve around the digital park map users can access through the app. The map's purpose is two-fold. First and most obviously, it helps visitors navigate the zoo and find the exhibits they're looking for. When users click on a certain exhibit, they're told what the current crowd level or wait time is. Like with the addition of busy/not busy time indicators when purchasing special event tickets, we believed that being able to remotely see how crowded an area was would help users better plan their visit. With this feature, users can skip over crowded exhibits and visit less busy ones, returning to the popular attractions once crowds have died down.
When soliciting feedback between our low-fi and clickable prototype, our test user was most enthusiastic about the map component of the app. They believed that knowing how busy an area of the zoo was would help them better avoid crowds. They mentioned using other theme park apps in the past with similar features, which they found helpful.
One change that we made between our low-fi and clickable prototype was including the screen for the special events calendar and special events descriptions directly into the ticket buying process. In the original low-fi design, users had to select to view the special events calendar and event descriptions. In our final design, the ticket purchasing page directs you to view special events when you purchase your general tickets. The goal of this change was to encourage users to consider purchasing tickets to the zoo's special events, while also making it easier for them to make that purchase.