Movie World Website Update 2024

[themagician]

Movie World have upgraded their entire website for the first time in at least 5 years and when browsing it on my phone, it seems like a good upgrade.

This is the home page

 

The attraction listing is a lot clearer now 

They’ve added the WoO renders to the website

You can now select the day you are visiting the park and it will tell you what attractions will be closed. This new setup for the maintenance schedule makes it a lot clear of what’s closed today/when you’re visiting, however makes it harder to see an overall view of the years schedule if you don’t know when you are visiting

 

The height requirements are a lot cleaner 

And they’ve added some fun facts for each attraction 

[New display name]

And when you try and plan ahead, MW lies.

Edited May 7 by New display name

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I think it looks good. I like some of the new features, however the new maintenance function, while nice, should compliment the existing calendar, not replace it entirely.

I said it in the other thread but i'll say it again here, nobody has considered site accessibility for PWD.

Since my reply in the other thread I spent 5 minutes googling and there's a handful of free accessibility checkers online you can just drop your URL into and it gives you a report in less than two minutes. I can't believe not one person in the design process for this site bothered to check it.

https://userway.org/accessibility-checker/?url=www.movieworld.com.au

 

Audit (accessibilitychecker.org)

 

WAVE Report of UNTITLED (webaim.org)

 

accessScan - Website Accessibility Checker - Free & Instant - accessiBe

[New display name]

I like the web page but the maintenance page, feels to me, purposefully unhelpful.

My biggest fear is now this sets the precedent, and now DW changes it page to be just as unhelpful for interstate visitors, who like to plan ahead.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

2 minutes ago, New display name said:

I like the web page but the maintenance page, feels to me, purposefully unhelpful.

Agree. They've listed every possible thing as an attraction so the site can say "7 are closed but 14 are open!" but when you look closer, the 14 includes:

• HWSD
• HWSD paid upcharge experience
• Batmobile paid upcharge photo experience
• The 3:30 parade
• "meet and greets"

Like, if they're going to list the star parade, let's go ahead and list the wonder woman show, the marilyn show, the 'shall we dance' show, the looney tunes dance party, and the Dorothy show? Then we can say that there are NINETEEN open!

While i'm being picky, the 'full attraction list' on the website includes all of the above things, but also includes the WB Kids Fun Zone as a precinct, but it is the only precinct on the website, and also it is despite all the attractions INSIDE the WB Kids area being listed separately.

And lastly while i'm being ultra pedantic, 'meet and greets' lists a bunch of (but not every) characters - from the 10 different DC Superhero\villain characters, 4 looney tunes characters, plus scooby, shaggy and marilyn. But there is no suggestion of where you might find them, or at what times they might appear.

Apart from the missed opportunity of adding an additional 17 attractions to the maintenance page if they'd listed them all separately, it would have been nice if they'd indicated perhaps where the characters would appear at minimum, and perhaps what times they would normally appear too (the showtimes function is great and lists the entire schedule for today - surely it wouldn't be hard to schedule in when certain characters would appear too, no?

[Lakyn17]

6 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Agree. They've listed every possible thing as an attraction so the site can say "7 are closed but 14 are open!" but when you look closer, the 14 includes:

• HWSD
• HWSD paid upcharge experience
• Batmobile paid upcharge photo experience
• The 3:30 parade
• "meet and greets"

Like, if they're going to list the star parade, let's go ahead and list the wonder woman show, the marilyn show, the 'shall we dance' show, the looney tunes dance party, and the Dorothy show? Then we can say that there are NINETEEN open!

While i'm being picky, the 'full attraction list' on the website includes all of the above things, but also includes the WB Kids Fun Zone as a precinct, but it is the only precinct on the website, and also it is despite all the attractions INSIDE the WB Kids area being listed separately.

And lastly while i'm being ultra pedantic, 'meet and greets' lists a bunch of (but not every) characters - from the 10 different DC Superhero\villain characters, 4 looney tunes characters, plus scooby, shaggy and marilyn. But there is no suggestion of where you might find them, or at what times they might appear.

Apart from the missed opportunity of adding an additional 17 attractions to the maintenance page if they'd listed them all separately, it would have been nice if they'd indicated perhaps where the characters would appear at minimum, and perhaps what times they would normally appear too (the showtimes function is great and lists the entire schedule for today - surely it wouldn't be hard to schedule in when certain characters would appear too, no?

The character schedule is something I put on every review when I go to movie world. I always go to guest services to see the schedule on arrival now but for quite some time my wife and I had no idea what times the characters were out. 
The locations on the sheet tend to be wrong anyway. As it says upper toons for some characters and they’re barely ever there. 
 

I hope for the Dorothy meet and greets in the future they’ll have it at the wizard of oz land. Most of the time when you have a photo with a character there’s not much theming besides Batman and Robin at the Batmobile. Sure you can see the justice league outside daily planet but that’s not too exciting. 
 

sea world has great character meet and greet opportunities on the stage with half decent theming. 

[TV15]

4 hours ago, New display name said:

And when you try and plan ahead, MW lies.

This new maintenance page is horrible. In a 'recent' TikTok that Movie World posted about Wild West Falls (link), the amount of people that had no clue that WWF existed at MW was alarming, same with DC Rivals HyperCoaster but mostly referred to as Joker, once again an interstate tourist glancing at the page will have no clue on what the ride is . By removing what the ride images, interstate tourists will have no clue what the rides are.

The lack of functionality that the page has is ridiculous; gone are the days of being able to easily view it, even if the design was 'outdated'. This brings up a crucial aspect of user experience: function over form. If something looks beautiful but doesn’t actually work properly, is it successful? I understand the style they're going for, but when the orange and green status colors are so similar that on my first glance I had to really analyse what the page was trying to convey, it's just not really that good.

5 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

https://userway.org/accessibility-checker/?url=www.movieworld.com.au

✨ Picture this ✨, a maintenance page should serve its purpose efficiently, providing clear information without causing confusion or frustration. This new version falls short of this basic requirement. It seems like MW has failed to prioritise functionality in their design of this page.

Not to mention this trend of form over function also occurs on the Park Hours page, as you have to scroll down to find the park hours, why is this not displayed at the top of the page and why are they promoting the app so much. Also its worth noting that all the animations on the site play in a non stop loop which as a general rule of thumb just isnt a great idea for accessibility reasons (homepage), when you hover over links on the buy tickets page they dissapear (tickets). Lastly, why does the open menu button in the navigation bar on the right side open it in the left side... once again poor design.

I wonder how long it will take before we see this same design applied to Sea World & Wet n Wild!

[themagician]

@DaptoFunlandGuy for comparison I used this checker for Sea World’s website (which is the previous style for MW) and Dreamworlds website.

Sea World’w website isn’t much better

And Dreamworld’s has a lot less violations, but the score is the same as MWs

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Just because older \ other sites are poorly designed for those with disabilities, doesn't mean it should be allowed to continue when a new site is developed.

[Tricoart]

2 hours ago, themagician said:

@DaptoFunlandGuy for comparison I used this checker for Sea World’s website (which is the previous style for MW) and Dreamworlds website.

Sea World’w website isn’t much better

And Dreamworld’s has a lot less violations, but the score is the same as MWs

Would ‘High Lawsuit Risk’ be in referral to actually suing due to the design of site itself, or an external issue that was influenced by the design of the site (like, being given false/hard to understand information from the site, that then led to a lawsuit)?

[Naazon]

yes

[GoGoBoy]

I think the design looks great. A much needed modernisation, but still with a fun feel that suits a theme park 

[webslave]

1 hour ago, Tricoart said:

Would ‘High Lawsuit Risk’ be in referral to actually suing due to the design of site itself, or an external issue that was influenced by the design of the site

Neither, it's speculative BS.

[Tricoart]

Oh, so that’s why they updated the site… (new maintenance homepage)

(the actual attractions that are included in their very forgiving ‘operational attractions’ counter were all in the kids’ section, bar GL, JL, & Batwing)

 

Just saw that this was pointed out earlier, but yeah, it’s a misleading statistic at the least.

Edited May 8 by Tricoart

[Mikev]

Agree with an earlier comment, the previous format for ride maintenance made it easier to plan my 2 week trip from NZ.  I could work out (relatively easy) which days in my trip would best suit to visit the park based on ride availability during that 2 week period, now I have to click one day at a time, and almost put into a spreadsheet to understand which day will be best to go.

Would have suited my case better to have the maintenance schedule in a table format (days across the top, rides down the side).

[aaronm]

On those measures I'm surprised that the fountain in the entry plaza isn't counted as an attraction, unless it's under maintenance?

[themagician]

They're selling themselves short though because they've included the parade and HSD, but not the Roxy Theatre? I'd argue the Roxy Theatre is more of an attraction than Batmobile.

[REGIE]

I think it's a great option to have it so you can see what rides will be open when you go but it should definitely co-exist with the old system. I often use that to plan a day to go. This new system almost discourages me to plan a trip. But if it do-existed with the old system it would make it easier again.  The new website looks good though

Edited May 12 by REGIE