Disney is actively evolving how they listen to fans and roll out new additions in the parks. We’ve recently shared how Disney is putting fans and guests at the center of everything that they do. Now, there is a new mobile app launching that provides Disney with the space to test new theme park additions and solicit immediate feedback.
During a recent media briefing, we sat down with Imagineers and technology leaders to understand more about what the new app would do and the goals for the application. There is one new experience launching immediately with the new app and another one expected to come soon after. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including the most underrated theme park restaurants and new discount gift card offers.
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New Disney Imagineering Lab Brings Guests Into Process
Disney is in the process of launching a new mobile app called Disney Imagineering Labs that provides a space to test new theme park app additions.
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The app is a new way for guests to help shape the Disney parks experience. Guests will find new offerings in various states of completion. Each offering is considered an “experiment” within the app “laboratory” with a specific goal to inform how Disney offerings can evolve in the future using guest feedback.
We sat down with Asa Kalama, Executive, Creative & Interactive Experiences, Walt Disney Imagineering, to understand more about the motivations for the new app and what is coming.
Kalama shared, “We are taking a lab-focused approach to the app. The idea here is that the content that lives inside of these experiments is in a much more raw state than we would typically share with our guests. As someone who has spent much of my career in the Research & Development lab in Walt Disney Imagineering, that is very exciting for us. This allows us to solicit real, authentic feedback from our guests, understand how they’re engaging with these experiences, where they’re successful, where they may need some additional improvement, and then based off that feedback and how people are engaging with the experience to make decisions about what we want to do with those.”
Inside the app, there will be a homepage listing the active experiments that are available inside the app. Within an experiment is a brief description of what the overall experience will include, and it will also list the features that they are focused on testing. For instance, one of the first experiments, Secrets of the Spire in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, is focused on augmented reality storytelling.
“The most critical component of this, which again is very new for us, is this idea of the experiment status. Typically we wouldn’t release anything until it was very polished, bug free, it has been QA-d extensively, but here we are actually telegraphing to our users based on each experiment what level of polish they can expect from this experiment,” Kalama shared.
There are three different status levels for experiments in the app: early development, taking shape, and nearly complete.
Kalama said, “What that means is that some of these experiments by design have less polish. They might have unfinished hard assets or temporary voiceover or they might even still have bugs or crashes. Our goal here is to make sure that those guests who want to engage with these experiences have a reasonable expectation of how they should expect the experiment to ultimately play out.”
At the end of every experiment is an opportunity for guests to provide feedback. They ask about any technical issues and whether the storytelling and features resonate with guests. Based on the feedback, the teams will iterate on the experiment within the app, take the learnings and move on, or consider moving the features into the overall destination apps, the Disneyland and Walt Disney World apps.
Separate from the polished destination apps, the Disney Imagineering Labs app provides an environment where glitches are accepted, allowing Imagineering and technology teams to test new offerings with real guests. Previously, they would have used small paid focus groups that were at most 15 people in the parks testing out new technology features.
Kalama shared that the app was built in close partnership with the Disney Experiences technology team that owns the destination apps. “The goal is to take the best of what we find here and have it find a home there.”
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Experiments within the library will change over time. Initially, they are launching with the Secrets of the Spire AR experience and a utility Disneyland Enchanted Guide – read about that in great detail here. The goal is for the app to be a fluid testing environment for Imagineering.
Kalama explained that the length of time that an experiment may be live will vary based on the information that Imagineering teams are trying to gather. “For some teams, in the first month of launch you’ve got more than enough data to be able to go back and take six months to a year to refine experiments and then come back out again. Others might be more iterative where it’s like ‘we’re taking bits of feedback and adding minor feature improvements’ and that experiment might live in the app for a year or more. It depends on the nature of what we’re trying to test.”
I asked about how the new offering compares to the Play Disney Parks app that was shut down earlier this year. Kalama gave a clear explanation.
“The Play Disney Parks app was focused from the very beginning in the mission statement on turning wait time into playtime. So, it was very narrowly focused on trying to identify simple mechanics that guests could enjoy while waiting in line that really focused on entertainment. Our thinking here is that this is a little bit more broad. Yes, it will include entertainment experiences, but it will also include utility-based experiences and things that fall into other categories. Also, because of the underlying technology framework, it allows us to do more ambitious things like Augmented Reality. The literal library that allows us to do that didn’t exist inside that app, so this is much more flexible in terms of the types of technologies we are able to test.”
Now, let’s get into the specifics of the Secrets of the Spire in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge experiment that is rolling out with the app. The app becomes quadnoculars, the space version of binoculars, and guests are able to then use their phone AR to see an additional layer of information on what is hiding in Galaxy’s Edge.
Leia Organa is the key storyteller in the game. She sends guests on an adventure through the land looking for clues to discover an NS-9 starpath unit before it falls into the hands of the Empire. Guests follow a kind of hot-and-cold tracking device that then turns into an AR scan of different sets in the area. By scanning one of these sets, secrets are revealed on your phone.
I tested out this experience in Galaxy’s Edge last week. Once you discover the secret item at each prop, an AR game is activated where you try to line up a triangle with other triangles. The game is the same at each station.
The game builds upon the previous learnings from the Batuu Bounty Hunters and Data Pad games. The key learning that the team took away from the previous games was the need for a focus on having guests keep their heads up in the physical experience instead of reading on their phone.
Props from the previous games are also used here. The digital crosses into the physical world. For instance, reaching one accomplishment will cause the Dianoga creature in the water by the bathrooms to rise up or the droids to come alive by Droid Depot. The new game is also structured in a way that is meant to allow guests to stop playing and ride or dine before coming back.
The Leia character and stormtroopers in the land will also know about the app gameplay and will be able to interact with the storyline.
Kalama explained how this game fits into the rest of the Imagineering lab goal. “One of the things that is sort of unique about the status of this experience is that normally we might develop an entire mission or entire experience before deploying it. Here it is effectively the first chapter of that story because again really the thing we are looking to get feedback on is the AR interaction mechanic itself.”
“We believe and we are excited that AR might be an interesting mechanism for us to be able to tell stories, but we haven’t had the opportunity to put these experiences in front of guests. We want to get that honest feedback before we put too much energy in a particular mechanic or modality that needs further refining before building the whole thing out. Effectively you guys will be playing a proxy story that wraps what that first chapter could be, but for us the focus is really on how does it feel to engage with this AR mechanic,” Kalama continued.
In order to test the AR mechanic, they had to visually capture the different spots in the land that are part of the day every 30 minutes to ensure that the technology would recognize the spot even in different light. The experiment is designed to be played during the day.
The Disney Imagineering Labs app and the Secrets of the Spire experiment will launch Nov. 10, followed by the Disneyland Enchanted Guide experiment, which is coming soon with no launch date announced yet. We are excited about the Disneyland Enchanted Guide in particular as it advances the goal of reducing required phone use at the theme parks.
Initially, the new app will be open only to age 13+ Disneyland Magic Key pass holders based on authentication in the app. All guests will be able to use the app in early 2027, per the app store description. The app is geared toward Disneyland Resort right now, but we would not be surprised to see this app and, at the very least, the resulting successful features, rolled out at Walt Disney World as well.
Kalama summarized their goal with the new app: “We think this is a really exciting way to invite our most core Disney fans to get a little peek behind the curtain and really help us define the future of what these parks experiences can be.”
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