Travel and leisure / 2023
PortAventura. Design it to be lived.
A full app redesign: architecture, experience, and revenue logic. From a park guide to a surface that connects the visit with the business.
01 / Problem
A season that will not wait.
High stimulation / low patience
“Every interaction competes with a roller coaster: that sets the hierarchy of the interface.”
Touching up screens was not enough. The architecture, the design, and the app’s revenue logic had to be rebuilt, with the season opening as a fixed date.
Navigation had to be radically simple: in a high-stimulation park nobody tolerates dense menus or long paths. And commerce could not pull the guest out of the visit. Express Pass, bookings, and purchase had to live inside the journey, not in a separate funnel that broke the moment.
02 / Team
Team
A team of three designers under my lead, from strategic scope through production delivery. The squad covered strategy, UX, UI, and client alignment through the season launch.
I led the team from strategic scope through final delivery and held the relationship with the client’s senior stakeholders. The central decision was to change the app’s role: stop being only a guide and become a revenue surface.
03 / Product decision
The map sells, too.
Product decision
“The map informs, orients, and converts in the same gesture.”
The purchase had to happen at the point of decision, not in a separate flow. When a guest looks at the map and chooses an attraction or a restaurant, that is the moment to offer Express Pass or a booking, before the thread of the visit is gone.
The interactive map puts Express Pass purchases and restaurant bookings inside the point-of-interest cards. Commerce shows up where the guest is already deciding what to do: navigation, decision, and transaction in the same gesture.
The experience had to get simpler without hiding the features that generate revenue. Fewer steps, same commercial capacity. The map informs, orients, and converts without diluting the product or sacrificing business for a “clean” UI empty of value.
Map and commerce together were validated across every zone of the park. The point of interest went from informing to enabling a relevant action in context: the visit stays at the center; revenue happens inside it, not at its expense.
04 / Accessibility
Don’t miss a word.
Accessibility had to answer the real park setting. In the Uncharted queue guests are standing, phone in hand, and the attraction audio competes with ambient noise: if you cannot hear, you lose the thread of the experience. High stimulation, low patience, and up to four languages at once.
We designed real-time audio-to-text transcription inside the attraction itself, visible in the normal journey, without a “special” mode buried in settings, so guests could follow the content without leaving the queue. Extreme conditions: queue, noise, phone in hand, and simultaneous internationalization.
That forced a rethink of hierarchy, typography, and interaction timing from scratch: a readable, low-friction experience in that context. One decision covered accessibility, engagement, and international reach.
Accessibility
“Accessibility that answers the setting.”
05 / Leadership and delivery
Finishing is also a decision.
With the season as a fixed date, I froze incremental additions to the home and redirected the team to complete the committed redesign. We protected revenue-critical features and the scope that had to reach production.
I aligned senior stakeholders on that priority and kept the team focused on delivery. The pressure for “one more thing” does not go away on its own: you have to name the no and hold it.
With a fixed launch, leadership also means making explicit what will not be added, and holding that decision through to the end, without diluting the product or breaking the client relationship.
06 / First season
Project achievements
Digital revenue
+25%
First full season after launch. App digital revenue after reframing it as a purchase surface: Express Pass and bookings built into the map.
App Store
2.2 → 4.5
The rating moved from 2.2 to 4.5 in the first full season after launch. The app stopped being a broken guide and held up to real use in the park.
Spend per guest
+10%
Per-guest spend rose 10% once Express Pass sat in the map, where the guest is already deciding. Purchase happens inside the visit, not in a separate flow.
07 / Outcome
Results
App Store rating from 2.2 to 4.5 in the first full season post-launch. Digital revenue up 25%, per-capita guest spend up 10% through the integrated Express Pass flow.
The map-as-commerce model was validated across all park zones. Delivered on a fixed seasonal deadline with no features cut from the revenue-critical path.
What does your product need now?
A hard decision, a team, or a product that has to move. Let’s start there.
Contact: chema.a.job@gmail.com