Carnival Corporation
Role
VP, Design & Product
Project Duration
2015-2018
Managed
• 10 direct reports concurrently
• 50+ across project team
Business Model
SaaS • B2B
Prelude
Our company finished our professional service contracts with Disney years prior and had now switched focus to our intellectual properties for automative and hospitality.
I was running our hospitality vertical at the time and our Experience Manager product. This product was something I envisioned, got executive support, pitched to our board, built, and was now deployed to most Carnival Corporation cruise ships.
Cruise ships their ships were closed off ecosystems with limited connectivity to shore. Managing software solutions on them was no simple task but we managed. We were controlling every stateroom tv, digital signage, and kiosk experience on the ships we were deployed on.
Meanwhile, former Disney executives were acquired by Carnival Corporation. They were the same executives we previously worked with on the very successful My Disney Experience application, Fastpass+ system, and the Magic Band. Carnival Corporation happens to also be the parent company to a large portion of brands we were already deployed on. They connected the dots between what we were delivering to their brands, what we delivered for Disney in the past, and their new projects needs. Their Chief Experience Officer scheduled a meeting/dinner with our Chief Product Officer and myself (VP, Product & Design) at Anthony’s in downtown Seattle. The rest is history.
Overview
This project was incredibly ambitious. A $1b investment was made to transform booking, embarkation, dining, excursions, in-cabin entertainment, onboard entertainment, destination experiences, point of sale systems, media, and so much more.
Carnival Corporation purchased an old military warehouse in Doral Florida. Here they would build out the entire guest journey including a guest living room, guest transportation, embarkation terminal, ship foyer, guest cabins, casino halls, elevator bays, and more. All partners were asked to work onsite where would ideate, test, and present solutions to Carnival Corporation executives.
Goals
Use Experience Manager to govern the most connected, immersive, frictionless, and transparent guest experience possible.
Create a new level of service that is enabled by technology, but not technology centric. This is achieved through deeply personalized guest experiences that are simple and hassle free.
“Things which are different in order simply to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.”
Challenges
Hardware
Mobile
Desktop/laptop
Smart TVs
Set-top-boxes
Custom tablets (kiosks & door panels)
AppleTV
Roku
Xbox
Casino machines
Software
iOS
Android
Web
Windows
Integrations
Existing CMSs
POS
Vacation booking
Excursions
Dining
Merchandise
Navigation
Itineraries
Weather
3r party services
Collaboration
10 different vendors
Sourcing
New hardware
Content
Staff
Support
Hardware installation
Software updates
FOTA while ship is at sea
Crew training
Proposal
Use Experience Manger as the backbone supporting as many user-facing digital experiences where feasible and viable.
Build on EXM by creating new content types, integrations, ingestion processes where integrations are not possible, and endpoint applications.
Hire local support for design, development, project management and product management.
Shepherd Carnival Corporation through hardware sourcing and installation.
Research
Understand
Feature breakdown
Breakdown every touchpoint into a concise feature list by working with stakeholders and subject matter experts.
Example:
Stateroom tv
Guest experience requirements
Hardware requirements
Crew management requirements
This gives us a baseline for what our endpoint applications and portal management web tool needs to support.
Guest data
In addition to the features, a ton of data had been collected and was actively collected for guests across most of the cruise brands. This data was compiled, analyzed, curated, and posted in the entry of our workspaces. It was a great reminder of what our guests were actively asking for balanced there usage data.
Observe
Guest journey
We accrued a lot of data and anecdotal information through our understanding phase but hadn’t yet observed guest experiences first-hand. So, we embarked on a cruise ourselves documenting the full process. We got to This provided a plethora of new information. We pooled our personal experiences, the data already collected from existing guest experiences, and created a guest journey (seen below). We were shocked by the amount of information thrown at guests in both digital and hard copy. We also identified all the highs and lows to better prioritize our efforts.
Crew journey
During our cruise we had tours, interviews, and works-sessions with crew. This gave us a better sense of their workload, workflow, struggles, capabilities, and commitment to their guests.
Stateroom TVs, Digital Signage, and Kiosks
I worked with the Content Managers responsible for all stateroom tvs, digital signage, and kiosk experiences.
Findings
Dedicated endpoints used for testing stateroom, digital signage, and kiosk experiences prior to publishing to guests.
1 dedicated specialist on the ship assigned to manage all digital experiences.
No oversight from shore-side management.
Content management was difficult due to the volume and lack of visual distinction.
No easy way to bulk perform common actions.
Very tedious and manual content updates. All departments ask for daily changes to align with the ship itinerary.
Content managers were not able to fulfill many requests from other departments due to template restrictions.
Define
Aggregate and compartmentalize
Product Management
Product leads and executive sponsors met weekly to review project requirements. We outlined clear products, product owners, and corresponding requirements.
Product review board
I proposed a feature intake process that was later approved and adopted. I held a seat on the product review board where I served as a product owner for carnival.
Products
Compass
The guest’s digital companion, navigation, itinerar, and aggregator of all products.
Ocean Concierge
Dedicated assistant aiding guests in every aspect of their journey.
OceanReady
Vacation preparation tool and guest documentation.
Medallion
Physical wearable BLE & NFC device used for guest identification, authentication, and purchases.
OceanPlay
Casino games
OceanView
On-demand video and live stream video content.
OceanNow
Point of sale system where guests can purchase food, drinks, or merchandise and have it delivered to them directly wherever they are at in the ship.
Memories
Chronological recorder of your vacation memories pooling events & photos into a timeline based on location.
Ideate
Solution proposals
Expanding Experience Manager
EXM needed to expand it’s capabilities to account for new business, guest, and crew needs.
New digital signage designs.
New endpoints including stateroom door tablets and casino machines.
New 3rd party integrations with apps and data services.
Information architecture improvement
Visual content type distinction
Content preview
Serve as the content repository for other services.
New endpoint content scheduling tools.
Custom canvas editor for endpoint experience freedom
Reviews
Review presentations were given at the Experience Innovation Center in Doral Florida with product leads, SMEs, and executive sponsors. They included varying levels of low fidelity mockups and feature flows, then transitioned to higher fidelity visual design and interaction/motion studies. Presentation material was printed and fixed onto large pinboards. This made the review more intimate drawing reviewers close together and into the material. Carnival executives and sponsors would write feedback directly onto the board and printed material.
The review process was rigorous and direct. The presenter needed to understand every nut and bolt of their design solution. Not knowing the answer to how something was suppose to work was inexcusable and not tolerated. Successful presenters needed to have moxie and confidence while being open to and respectful of feedback.
Solutions
Experience Manager
Content Management
The content managers on-board had listed a series of issues they faced including the lack of bulk actions and visual distinction.
Carnival corporation needed us to store dining, events, activities, and merchandise content. As part of this they needed stricter levels of user access control. Digital signage managers, stateroom tv managers, dining services managers, excursion managers, and other specialized managers should only have access to their respective content.
Approved designs were built and tested within the Experience Innovation Center.
Before:
After
Display number of impacted endpoints
Display number of linked content types.
Display last edit timestamp
View styles for list and grid
New sort options
Table actions
New actions for ‘rename’ and ‘move.’
Quick view
Content preview
Folder view
User access control
Content creation
The content managers on-board had stated that they are often approached by other departments asking them to create an advertisement/promotion that is not possible with their limited templates.
Carnival Corporation project is introducing many custom client experiences that will require new methods of authoring to keep pace with constantly evolving product.
Approved designs were built and tested within the Experience Innovation Center.
Before:
Fully templated system to restrict content managers onboard and to simplify the authoring process.
After
Custom html5 canvas editor
Animation editor
Add widgets or apps
Layer interaction behaviors
Hyperlink layers to other content and sources.
Save as templates.
New shape layer and svg support
Built to scale for new layer types
Scheduling
I witnessed content managers on-board spending large portions of their day manually publishing bundles of content at 3am ship-time when it was least likely to impact guests.
Carnival Corporation project needed scheduling for on-board and off-board dining, events, and activities. This included a rebuild of the system managing their ship itineraries.
Approved designs were built and tested within the Experience Innovation Center.
Before:
If the crew needed to publish new content to groups of endpoints at a specific time or date, they would need to do it manually in that moment of time.
After
Default schedule of content with recurrence parameters.
Custom schedules that override default day schedules.
Date picker with default and custom content schedule indicators.
Recurrence planner
Workflow
Carnival Corporation was shocked to find out how much content was being generated on the ship without shoreside approvals. They asked for a workflow process for content approvals.
Before:
Any content created could be published to an endpoint as long as you had a user role that gave you permission.
After:
Approved and draft versions
Draft statuses
In-progress
Request review
Submit for approval
Approval denied
Approved
Version history
Restore old version
Guest endpoint experiences
During our observation voyage I experienced a lot of Guest hardships. Most all of them related to accessing information or ship services.
Before:
Guests had to call, find and walk to the intended department, or get in line at the concierge desk.
After:
We designed and built endpoint experiences for mobile, web, digital signage, stateroom tv, and OTT devices. Guests could now access information and services through their personal devices or through 4000+ interactive displays installed across a MedallionClass ship.
Results
Business
Experience Manager excelled through early trials with Carnival Corporation’s OCEAN project. The product proved to be adaptable and effective at managing guest experiences. We always delivered what we promised and when we promised it by. Carnival Corporation was so satisfied with the product and our performance that they wanted to secure our future in the project. They purchased an extended license for $40m.
The OCEAN projects launched on the Princess Caribbean ship and sparked 36 billion favorable impressions according to Carnival Corporations 2018 annual financial report. This report also details significant net revenue gains attributed to lowered costs from new management tools.
I was approached by their executive team and asked to work for them as head of design for the project. I declined.
Crew
EXMs success extended into the lives of the crew shoreside and onboard. New jobs were created specializing in EXM. In fact, former employees of ours were hired by Carnival Corporation to manager their websites powered by EXM.
I maintained an open-door policy with the Content Manager I worked with during our observation cruise. He was ecstatic about the product updates. They empowered his abilities and saved him a tremendous amount of time. He was fulfilling more cross-department requests and enabling new revenue streams. He was later promoted and managed several content managers across the fleet. We maintained a recurring quarterly review with his content management team. Feedback provided lead to continual product improvements.
Guests
The new guest experiences revitalized the brand. The demographics interested in the brand now included young families and couples. The experience was more personalized and engaging. Guests had easier and more comfortable ways of accessing ship offerings through mobile, web, and over 4000 interactive displays throughout the ship. This made it easier for them to action on those offerings without the stress of needing to call or talk to someone. These new experiences where in-place to better their journey. Naturally, this lead to higher onboard sales.
The ugly truth
After my departure from the project the product fragmented. They were unable to piece together the different partner solutions in a comprehensive fashion. Carnival Corporation pivoted slightly, adjusted marketing, and launched unique apps for each partner that was able to bring their end to a minimal viable product state.
Carnival Corporation greatly cut back on their initiative to push the experience across all brands and focused purely on Princess Cruise Lines.
The former Chief Experience Officer for Carnival Corporations is now the President of Princess Cruise Lines.
The original vision is left waiting to be brought to fruition.
Introduction
To make this easier on myself and you, here are a series of videos detailing the vision and our work we did. This covers a fraction of what was worked on, but does detail what has been deployed.
CES 2017 Keynote
The original vision for a new way to cruise.
OceanMedallion
A wearable device that replaces everything in your wallet so Guests can enjoy a more immersive experience.
OceanReady
A new way to prepare you for your voyage.
OceanView
On-Demand platform of TV Shows and short-form-media produced by Carnival Corp.
OceanNow
Personalized service with Food and Drink orders that are delivered wherever you may be.
OceanCompass
Point-to-point wayfinding solution to get you where you need to go.
PlayOcean & OceanCasino
A whole new way to experience onboard gaming shipwide.
JourneyView
Your interactive timeline where managing your schedule is a breeze.
The Details
Devices, Devices, & More Devices
This project required designs for all the devices you can imagine: web, mobile, tablet, door panels, Smart TVs, Apple TV, Roku, Fire Stick, and more.
If you enjoy the challenge of designing for responsively and for variable devices, then you would have loved this project.
Component Library
A component library was built for every OS and device type. Keeping all teams in sync was critical. There were nearly 20 different companies working on this project all with their own design and development teams. We developed workflows for formal reviews, presentations, approvals, and how/when to publish design system updates.
Interactions & Motion
Fresh new interactions and motion concepts brought the experience alive. We tested a wide array of interaction models.
See blow for video examples.
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Here & Now
A list of services, food, & beverages delivered to you no matter where you are.
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Picker Menus
Component interaction definitions.
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Journey Navigation
Progress disclosure model for maps + itineraries.
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Bubble Menus
The bubble fascination was intense. We developed an entire IA on a bubble model system.