 organizer at Geeks of London. So you can kind of see I've always been a geek and it's mainly started out as being a massive Disney geek. I grew up obviously with all the Disney movies and most probably can sing along and can still sing along to most of the Disney songs. A couple years back some friends of mine who are also massive Disney geeks obviously organized a trip to Florida because they realized it's not that expensive to go during the off season in January and I was gutted that at the time I couldn't actually make it. So this year we did it again. Disney 2, Disney Harder. So this was 12 geeks, two weeks and a villa and a lando because it turns out it's really really cheap to rent a place, a villa for two weeks. So we didn't only do Disney, we did all the obvious parts, Disney, Orlando, but we also got to see a rocket launch which is really cool. But the majority of the trip I have to admit was going to all the Disney parks and kind of exploring what we could do there. So one of the main things that we wanted to see during this was the Keys to the Kingdom tour and this is a tour that takes you backstage of Disney and you get explained what went into building the park. So that's what I'll be talking about today. Disney has this concept of four keys and I realized during the Keys to the Kingdom tour that a lot of these keys, the lessons behind these can actually be applied to web development and kind of be applied to how we actually think about the products we're making and the projects that we're working on. So the four keys are safety, courtesy, efficiency and show. So first up, safety. Now the obvious thing here is the safety of rides. How do you make sure that people are safe during a ride? It's a theme park so they need to make sure that there's no deaths or fatalities or kills or whatever. But that's not the part of safety that I'm actually interested in. I'm way more interested in all of these little other things that Disney does to help their customers, the people coming to the park. So this is a picture of Main Street in Disney. It's that bad weather because that's how it was when we were there. We were kind of unlucky. It was rainy and miserable and gloomy but still a lot of fun. So there are several things here in Main Street that kind of show how safety comes back in the stuff that Disney have designed and they're not completely obvious. I showed the right slider. So first up are the flags. Does anyone here have an idea why these flags might be safety? And the people who have been aren't allowed to explain. So all these flags are actually lightning rolls. It's Florida. So obviously there's a lot of lightning storms the entire time. So they need to make sure that they take care of that. So throughout the park there'll be way more other lightning rods hidden throughout the park. The cool thing of Disney is that you don't actually see though that they're lightning rods. The little Mickey Mouse in Hollywood Studios is a lightning rod. All the little spires in the Tomorrowland are lightning rods. It just throughout the entire park everything is hidden away. All for the safety of the visitors. The second one that I wanted to look at was the pavement. Again it's not really that obvious to see but whenever there's a height change, so whenever somebody might trip, Disney will paint the ground different colors. So it's just this little visual indication that you need to be aware that something is changing. And again it's very subtle but I like how Disney thinks about these things. The third one, and you can't really see it on the photo though, is the doors are open. So all the doors and all the shops are always open. With that idea of not having the visitors have to open them and bump into them and have an extra security risk for actually having them closed doesn't really do anything. Then we have the slant of the pavement. Again it's not completely obvious but if you think about it most visitors to Disney are super excited that they're allowed to come to this place. For them it's a magical experience and super excited and they'll rush into the park whenever they arrive and try to run to their favorite spot of the park, their favorite theme right. And that gets dangerous a couple of times. People will start running so hard that by the time that they hit the middle of the park they're at speeds that kind of gets annoying and might hurt them. So Disney slants the pavement up so that by the time they hit the middle of the park they're slightly slower and slightly less inclined to actually bump into stuff. Then we have the bins. The bins are all sort of first time that they built the park in the other side of the country. They had the problem that the day of the opening the trash started overflowing because they hadn't properly figured out how many people were visiting and how much trash would be generated. So Walt Disney came up with a system of having no more than 30 steps between any set of bins. So people wouldn't get bored by the time they needed to throw their trash away and actually throw their trash away rather than have it pull up somewhere. So all of this is kind of links back to one of the things that Disney really wanted to think about was you don't build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them. So it's all about coming up with allowing to give stuff to your users without actually making them think about what they're actually looking for. So helping your users get what they want. And one of the best examples I find that does that is gov.uk. So the moment that you try to search for a bank holiday it just shows you straight on the main page what the next bank holiday is. Another example is GitHub. If you try to search for something it's very obvious and very clear what you are searching for. So kind of link to this is also being accessible. Making sure that you're taking care of these things that your users want without them really having to think about it. The second one is courtesy. Courtesy is a bit vague. But again it's thinking about things. Thinking about how our visitors will want to be treated. So again doors are open. It's always welcoming and people can come in. Pavement again is slanted. And in this case it's about when people leave the park. When they're tired and want to get back to their homes and their hotels etc. The pavement is slanted and it's way easier to get out of the park. And it makes it just you're helping your visitors, your users. You make their lives a little bit easier. Same thing as with the bins. Just easier. And you're doing them a courtesy and allowing them to easily get rid of their trash rather than to have to search for a trash can. Now the other example I found was we had these badges. A friend of ours got all of us badges. Not the just engage ones. That was just one for me and my fiance. We all got badges with stuff on them. What we didn't realize until a couple of days into the trip was that the moment that you're wearing them all Disney employees actually have to congratulate you. So you have these very cheerful Americans go, congratulations. When's the big day? And that happens every single time. Even if you might be there with like a couple of friends who aren't necessarily your other half who get really, really nervous and awkward. And it's all about having a kind of personal touch to this experience. Having these friendly people just interact with you. And it will be everyone. It will be, you know, the people with the rides but also the people at the shops. So again, quote from Disney. You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to take the dream in reality. So this is all about being human, being personal, friendly, honest. Kind of in short, don't be a robot. Have this personal face to it all. And one of the examples I always like is City Mapper. Their release notes always make me smile. They always have something on them that makes you realize that there are actually people working on these. We have a bit of humor. So third up is efficiency. Now, efficiency, go back to Main Street again. Again, the open doors, they're open, easier. People don't have to open doors and shut them the entire time. And the flags. Flags is a bit of a weird one, I find. The thing is, those flags, none of them are actually real American flags. So the thing with American flags is that if you have an proper American flag, it comes with this entire set of processes that you need to do with it. Like pulling it up every morning and taking it down in the night. I'm not really sure because I'm not American. But for them not to want to go through that all, they make sure that there's only one actual American flag in the entire park, which does go through the entire process. All the other ones are slightly different. So they're missing a star. They're missing a stripe just to make sure that they're not actual proper flags. Second one, third one is, again, slant of the pavement makes people leave the park quicker. Again, it's more efficient. Fourth one is the bins. Now, all these bins, they're all connected to this underground system. So rather than have people walk around the park and empty the trash throughout the day, you'll never see that in Disney. Instead, what happens is you have this entire corridor system called the utiladors, which run throughout the park, allowing stuff like that to happen, but also to make sure that deliveries and all these other things that people don't really want to see are hidden away. So we actually got to go into the utiladors during this trip, which was pretty cool. And part of this also is allowing the cast members that are actually in costume and characters to get from one side of the park to the other. Because Disney has these rules that certain Disney characters aren't allowed to appear in the parks that they don't belong. For instance, you don't want Cinderella showing up in Tomorrowland, because that just doesn't make sense. So, quote from Disney, I don't want the public to see the world they live in while they're in the park. I want them to feel they're in another world. So this idea is hiding away the technicalities. So one example I find that we can think of is error pages. It's way more fun to have error pages that look good and explain and help the user get to where they want versus exploded code. There's nothing worse than having something that the normal user can't understand. So it's this entire idea of being clear and being obvious. Another example I find is Slack. So not sure if any of you have used it, but if you have the moment that you get introduced to Slack, you get guided through this entire process of how to use it, and it's very clear and obvious what you're supposed to be doing. So it's giving the user a way more efficient time to get to grips with the program. Finally, we have Show. So Show, again, flags, lightning rods, but they're all prettified and hidden away nicely, so nobody is obvious that there are lightning rods. Then the pavements, again, it's different colors, but also in every different section of the park, they're themed. So in Frontierland, there are bleak little hoof prints. In Tomorrowland, there will be other stuff on the floor that I don't actually remember anymore, but in every part of the park, it's slightly different. Again, the slanted pavements. In this case, it's also a bit more of a wider picture. What Disney does is they create this illusion of forced perspective where it makes you think that the kingdom, that the castle is way bigger than it actually is, and that everything is bigger than it actually is. The stories on the side, there actually are two floors, so it looks like they're free just to give you that illusion that it's way more bigger. Then the other one is smell. Disney actually does this formal smell engineering, which sounds crazy, but it's stuff like making sure there's popcorn at the start of the park where you get in. So you kind of associate it with this ideal circus and performance and cinema, that feeling of coming to see something magical. Same thing as with the haunted house. It smells musty like an old library, and Disney has actually done research into making sure people experience these smells. Pirates of the Caribbean smells like sea salt, like sea. Similar with sound. Tomorrowland will have this sci-fi music playing in the background. Tomorrowland will have pioneer music, whatever that might be in the background. So it's all this idea of having the sound, the smell, and what you see contribute to the entire experience. And then you have the cast members. So you have the characters actually in costume, but we also have the people doing the rides. And all these people are always in a role. They always have to be friendly and helpful. So there's actually this line in the park that tells the cast members where they are visible to the visitors and where they aren't. So the moment that they step over that line, they actually have to be on show and in character and make sure they're always friendly and smiling and everything. And yeah, it's also why they call cast members. It's this idea that they're not just employees, they're part of the show. So again, quote from Disney. Disneyland is a star. Everything else is in the sporting role. So it's this idea that the entire park is part of the experience and everything else is contributing to it. So it's this idea of being magical. So we can apply that as adding the light to each experience. So it's this idea that whatever we do, we should make the users think that they're experiencing something cool, something fun, something magical. So one example I find is Slack. There's a little, little button hidden in the menu with surprise meal. I won't say what it does, but it's just this little thing that when you see it, it puts a smile on your face. And it's these types of moments of the light that we should all be thinking about how can we help our users experience these. So these are kind of the four keys that Disney have and how we can apply them. So it's being accessible, being human, being clear and being magical. And finally, one more quote from Disney. Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends. And I think that applies to the park study build, but it also applies to any product, any project that we're working on. What we want to do is build what we want so well that people will come over and over and over again. Thanks. Any questions? You couldn't really hack them, but there were at least 10 different ones that I know of. So that was your first time here. I've got something to celebrate. Happy birthday. It's my anniversary. No, I think it's just congratulations to all of them, but they're color coded. So I think it's based on the color that people recognize what they are. But we've actually had that we were like on top of the ferry and somebody was standing on the shore, saw us with the badges and was waving at us. Congratulations. And they're very, they're big, obvious badges. Do you think they would notice if we changed only the text like I'm dying in six weeks instead of. I try it. Have you got any examples or anecdotes of where you've applied these practices to something you've done? Just in general, good things that you should always apply to anything that you do, especially the the light is actually at work at future learn where I work is one of the things that we're looking at. It's how do you make sure that you do something a little bit more special. And I love that because that's what I love with the stuff that I use, that thing that puts a smile on your face. And the same thing with all the other ones. It's, you know, being accessible is something that everyone should be thinking of because not you might not realize that it's something that your users want. But there are little things there which benefit a lot of people, even though it might not benefit yourself necessarily. Did you see any of the animatronics behind the scenes? We saw, we got explained how a couple of the things worked, but we didn't actually see any of the internal stuff. We got to see parts of the parade floats and kind of, well, had a look into how they kind of worked. But yeah, I'm not that much into the hardware side of things that I was interested in that. But I think there was another tour actually that does go into that side. But oh, hello. Can you just book those tours? Or do you have to know someone special to go on? No, anyone can book them. They're on the Disney Florida site. And you need to call them to make the appointment. It's just that a lot of people outside of the US don't really know about these tours because they tend to book through other agencies and stuff. But yeah, anyone can book them. It's just I think we booked hours. Yeah, six to eight weeks before. So it's not something that you can go and say, Oh, I'm on a trip. Let's do this in two days time. It's something that you do have to book beforehand. Okay, thank you very much. And one last round of applause for our fantastic speaker.