Reducing customer wait time and employee workload with a digitized onboarding flow.

MagiQuest Pre-Arrival Experience

@ Great Wolf Lodge Corporate

Designing and owning an immersive and engaging digital onboarding flow.

Product Management & Design Intern

June - July 2025

Skills

Timeline

Role

Journey mapping, field research, stakeholder partnership, feedback integration

Tools

Figma
Azure
Quantum Metric

Summary

I was the product owner and sole designer of this project. I created, from scratch, a digital customer onboarding flow for MagiQuest, the second-most popular attraction at Great Wolf Lodge (GWL). By moving more of the onboarding online rather than in the store, we could shorten in-store lines, getting more people excited to play MagiQuest and more visibility on MagiQuest upsells. GWL anticipated a multi-million dollar revenue increase from this project.

I collaborated with stakeholders, iterated constantly, and championed the user through the whole process.

I loved MagiQuest as a kid. I hope my love for the game shows in my design process.

Problem

Customers experience long lines and crowded storefronts when registering for MagiQuest on-site. Employees repeat a lengthly onboarding flow for each customer. Some customers leave the line before buying the experience.

How might we reduce on-site lines to increase MagiQuest conversions and upsells?

Exploration & Learning

I knew lines were long. But why?

To start solving, I interviewed, observed, and researched four MagiQuest stakeholders and user groups.

  • the Magi - the person playing MagiQuest (that’s me in the picture!)

  • the parent - if the Magi is a young child

  • the Pack Member - the GWL employee onboarding new Magi

  • the business - branding and stakeholders

࿔ Design direction: Create a name generator to help kids find the perfect Magi name.

🔎 “Kids take a while to think of their Magi name.” - GWL Chicago employee

Creating each customer’s MagiQuest account requires a lot of manual information input, and the game itself takes a while to explain. Even when we were creating my own account, I spelled my name and Magi name multiple times as the employee struggled to hear me in the busy store. Time and energy costs add up.

🔎 Long lines mean antsy kids that pressure their parents to leave the store.

࿔ Design direction: Validated need for a streamlined digital onboarding flow. Go digital, skip the line.

While the employee explained MagiQuest to a fellow intern, I saw that next in line to create a MagiQuest account was a parent bouncing an unhappy baby on her hip.

🔎 “MagiQuest is an experience. Employees should be making onboarding magical for each customer.” - Director of MagiQuest

࿔ Design direction: Motivated my heavy branding efforts in breathing magic into the digital flow.

The director of MagiQuest insisted that we keep alive the MagiQuest magic that I experienced as a kid. But while in-person onboarding was a good touchpoint opportunity, employees were overwhelmed and rushed by the line.

To answer my why: Lines were long because employees had to walk each customer through their account creation, manually inputting information.

Solution

A digital onboarding experience to help customers beat the line, lighten the load on employees, and increase visibility on upsells.

After user research, I presented my findings and my suggested onboarding flow to the director and product manager of MagiQuest.

Prototyping

Iterative Design

I learned GWL's design system and perfected my autolayout so I could maintain brand consistency. I constantly asked for and integrated feedback from designers and executives. Below, you’ll find select features of my onboarding flow that demonstrate my design style and iterative process.

For context, GWL customers would receive an emailed link to this MVP flow after they have purchased a MagiQuest experience for their stay.

Branding

I worked with the director of MagiQuest to integrate MagiQuest assets and brand guidelines into my design. Now, with just a glance, users can easily associate this onboarding flow with the greater MagiQuest brand, becoming immersed into the magic.

before

after

The landing page is my chance to grab attention and convince users to create a MagiQuest account. I did that with:

Landing Page

Magi Name Generator

In the game, players are referred to by a Magi name. This name is the first connection that Magi have to MagiQuest, so I wanted the naming experience to be magical and memorable.

I experimented with creative buttons, but also needed the experience to be intuitive without any instructions. I presented many iterations of the name generator to my team and ran informal focus groups to refine my balance of accessibility and fun.

final

past iterations

This onboarding flow is also an opportunity to upsell MagiQuest equipment. My focus here was to limit mental load so customers can spend less time understanding and more time buying!

I right-aligned the wands to

  • teach the difference between a wand and wand mod

  • lighten the copy and mental load needed to learn about our awesome equipment!

I grouped the wands so users can quickly understand

  • what’s already included in their bundle and

  • what equipment they can upgrade to

Visual Hierarchy

final

past iteration

Though my internship ended before we could send this to development, I made sure to leave the project in a strong place!

Next Steps

I’m leaving behind:

  • a robust prototype on Figma approved by my team, stakeholders, and members of executive leadership

  • a mockup of a digital selling platform for future expansion of the MVP onboarding flow (see image)

  • ideas for a tribe selection quiz, also for a future iteration, that would personalize the MagiQuest experience even more

  • a design document for a MagiQuest video game that we could use to expand MagiQuest’s reach beyond in-lodge play!

I was the owner of this project. Day in and day out, I initiated where and how the project progressed.

Reflection

I learned how to take charge of user research, ask for feedback, and mix stakeholder needs with my own UX knowledge to create a memorable and beautiful user flow. I practiced advocating for the user and presented my work weekly to the design team and GWL executives.

I am so grateful to my manager and team for trusting me to take charge of this project and for supporting me. They empowered me with feedback and encouragement generously.

Another project I was simultaneously working on - quality testing for a new feature, the Birthday Booking Engine. I helped roll out the booking engine for several properties and streamlined the QA testing workflow.

A side project as well - I wrote my first ticket for a copy edit that I found on the site. My copy edit increased that feature’s click rate by 200%!

The Digital team!

Howls to my fellow interns :)

Thanks for joining me on my journey through MagiQuest. MagiQuest wasn’t my only project at Great Wolf Resorts. I would love to chat more about how I grew as a product manager and designer— connect with me!

You made it!

Now, let’s get back to Work.