Designing character pages for SEO growth and character exploration on Mobile
Characters used to have their own pages with content and exploration
Due to reduced support for the production team, character pages were unpublished and cut down on overhead.
From 2023, SEO dropped nearly
after Disney’s character content was aggregated into a single summary page with no unique URLs.
Partnered with Disney.com’s Product Manager Director, Senior Production Manager, Senior Product Designer, and Lead Software Engineer to understand constraints, goals, and priorities.
Goals
PRODUCT
Grow SEO & traffic to help outlink to Disney+ and Disney Shop
PRODUCER
Create a template that’s able to make page creation more efficient and simple
USERS
Create a more digestible and engaging page to learn about characters, shop, and discover
Result: A high-fidelity, best-case character page to use as reference for bringing character pages back, efficient page creation, and desirable and engaging platforms to tell their stories in the best way for users.
I ran an audit of existing character pages inside and outside of Disney and prioritized organization methods, UI, and content, taking note of the important information for pages with less content available to a lot of content available for the character.
This informed the information hierarchy, ensuring each section (About, Quotes, Fun Facts, Shop, Streaming, Related Characters, etc.) balanced business and user goals.
Competitive analysis provided me context on how Disney and other brands prioritized information. Design decisions were made from competitive analysis, thinking of stakeholder goals, and deeply considering how users explore. After compiling lists of content to include, I finalized information prioritization based on both business and user goals.
Iterated on structure, flow, WDAG accessibility, and visual design to create a high-information-density, mobile-first character page. Explored multiple module orders and layout patterns through sketches and wireframes before moving to high fidelity.
And many iterations on structure, flow, meeting WCAG accessibility standards, and visual design....
While I reworked visual design and character brand identity, I scoured hundreds of pages and went through many rounds of iterations to develop a high fidelity, high information density character page for Moana.
Users were limited in their exploration of characters, where the current Disney experience was not meeting their expectations of what they want on a character page.
Result: A high-fidelity, best-case character page to use as reference for bringing character pages back, efficient page creation, and desirable and engaging platforms to bring characters to life.
Tested two versions of the Disney Character Pages prototype (V1 vs V2) with 10 participants aged 30–49. Using DScout, they were awarded $20 for their participation. Users explored the Moana page and shared what they expected, liked, and found missing.
10/10 preferred Version 2 for being more detailed and visually complete
Users wanted history, fun facts, and quotes to feel more “Disney-like”
Requested music or voice interactivity to enhance immersion
Single-page design improved discoverability and emotional connection
Wanted: theme park tie-ins and real-world touchpoints
“It has everything I’m looking for — story, merch, quotes, fun facts. It feels like Disney.”
“I love that everything is scrollable instead of clicking a million links.”
Stakeholder Alignment: Feedback from producers and PMs emphasized scalability across franchises and campaign flexibility. This informed design choices like modular templates, adaptable color systems, and reusable content slots.
Design Impact: The final design not only resonated with users but also aligned with producer needs for scalability and content flexibility — setting the foundation for a system that can scale across 100+ Disney characters.
Designing the Character Pages challenged me to balance storytelling and scalability, exploring the emotional “magic of Disney” while also designing a system flexible enough to work for every character and efficient for the producer’s internal work flows of managing the sites.
- Increased discoverability potential (unique URLs for SEO)
- System scalability for 100+ IPs
- Improved content creation workflow efficiency for producers
- 100% preference in user testing
Stakeholders
User and usability testing, additional meetings with engineers
Refinement
Keep iterating! Shorter scroll, info heirarchy, Disney Parks, etc.
Launch Ready
Make final templates, standardize components, send to dev
AI Search Optimization
Collaborate with content and SEO teams to ensure pages are easily discoverable through conversational search—focusing on narrative-driven UX writing rather than keyword stuffing.
What would I have done differently?
AI Prototyping and Researching: My time at Disney was limited. Tools like Cursor, Lovable, and Vercel change how we can deliver MVPs and core flows without spending too much time in “independent” processes. This would have allowed me to spend more time in conversation, collaboration, and deep in data with real users and outside teams.
