We recently re-introduced the calendar back to MouseDining.com. It was a rough path to get it there. Here’s the history and detail of the changes.
In an effort to simplify things, eliminate confusion, and speed up the redesign process, the calendar view got nixed from the recent MouseDining redesign. Honestly, there were so many things wrong with the calendar view that it just didn’t make sense to keep it. The things that bothered me most were:
- The calendar was a design nightmare. All that data has to be displayed on a site that receives nearly 70% of its visits from mobile devices.
- The calendar only had complete data for parties of 4. This caused confusion for anyone comparing our availability to Disney’s for any other party size.
- The calendar used a card system that ignored a traditional calendar view to easily identify months and days of the week.
Following the launch of the new site, hundreds of users were immediately asking, “What happened to the calendar?” This is when I realized I had made a mistake in leaving it out of the redesign.
“Well, if we’re going to put the calendar back on the site,” I said. “We’ve got to do it right.”
So I gathered my designers and engineers, stripped everything down to the raw data, and set out to re-engineer the calendar and “do it right”.
Nearly two months later, I’m happy to report that we’ve improved the calendar in nearly every way.
- The new calendar design is simple. We highlight the date if we see any availability.
– Select a date to reveal detailed availability, book immediately, or set an alert.
– The new design was built using a mobile-first methodology. Our mobile experience should be top notch. - The new calendar has complete availability data for party sizes 12 and below for the next 90 days.
– For dates beyond 90 days, we’ll show you what data we have, but it will be incomplete.
– For parties larger than 12, we suggest splitting your party into multiple, smaller parties. - The new calendar mirrors a traditional calendar to easily identify months and days of the week.
– Navigating the calendar is intuitive and shows you a full month at a time.
– You can now view dates far, far into the future. However, Disney generally makes reservations available no sooner than 180 days in advance.
These changes come at some cost, so here’s what had to go in order to make these calendar changes possible:
- MouseDining no longer supports parties greater than 12.
– Our data indicates that only 0.61% of users had set alerts for parties larger than 12.
– If you had existing alerts for parties larger than 12, you will still receive alerts until you delete them or they expire. - The calendar view will be incomplete beyond 90 days out.
– We only request data up to 90 days out (down from 180 days) unless other users (or you) have set an alert.
– Beyond 90 days out we only show you what data we have from other users’ alerts. - Disneyland restaurant calendars are limited to 7 days.
– Our data indicates that only 0.41% of users had set alerts for Disneyland restaurants.
– Disneyland restaurants are generally much easier to get into and reservations are often made same-day.
I hope you’ll understand, as I have come to understand, that these minor sacrifices are well worth it when considering the improvements to the new calendar view. Of course, if you have any issue with these changes or would like to voice your opinion, please do so by contacting our support team.
The new calendar view is available now on MouseDining.com. Simply navigate to a restaurant of your choosing and scroll down to experience the best way to plan and secure your Disney dining reservations.
Warm regards,
Dustin Checketts
President
