Universal Studios Hollywood: A UX Review

This past summer I spent several months working as a Studio Tour Ambassador at Universal Studios Hollywood. It was an awesome experience. If you follow me, you’ve probably heard me talk about it. The people were awesome, and helping build memories was something I loved.

So here’s what I recommend for the Studio Tour.

Disclaimer: I did not use any data or analytics, I was busy standing in the sun observing. NBCUniversal may have already tried these things and found them unsuccessful. Or the cost to change them is prohibative.

1. Switch the Foreign Language and Special Needs Loading areas. It seems counter-intuitive that the handicapped guests have to travel the entire length of the venue to get to their boarding area (not to mention travel all the way back across it to get to the restrooms). And the foreign language tours, which leave every few hours, are at the front of the venue and cause bottlenecks of guests trying to figure out of there is still room on the next tram. This reduces the crowding situation as well as provides a better experience for all guests.
2. Provide final boarding signs in Spanish and Mandarin. One of the biggest problems we had was explaining to the non-English speaking guests when a tour was full. Often they were full hours before the scheduled departure time. But no matter how slowly you explain this, it still isn’t coming out in Mandarin if you only speak English. Signs at the boarding area would be very helpful to everyone involved.
3. Shade. Universal does a good job with heat control, but the queues need their shade extended about another ten feet. The edges are in the sun, and guests often lag in the shadows until they absolutely have to move forward. This slows the lines down, but then again, so would heat stroke.
4. 3D Glasses. The standard layout is to often have 3D glasses available at up to ten locations in line. This seems like a good idea initially, until you watch how th eline works. Guests stop at each location. First to get their glasses, sometimes to go back to get glasses thinking the first location is the only location. Then, when they get to a closer location, they stop to see if they can get “newer” glasses. This causes choke points at every glasses location. Instead, have the glasses only available near the ride loading area. Everyone gets them in the same place at the same time.

So that’s my free and unsolicited advice for the Studio Tour. Feel free to pay me for more awesome observations!