The Grand Canyon West App was designed as a companion tool to enhance visitor experiences at the destination. It provides essential information, including locations, amenities, and navigation, while also delivering educational content that highlights the cultural and historical significance of the sites.
Scope of Work
App Design
Designed and aided developed on an award-winning application to enhance Grand Canyon West’s digital presence and engagement.
The Grand Canyon West app was created to elevate the visitor experience by offering clear, accessible information and on-site guidance. From wayfinding and amenities to cultural and historical insights, the goal was to build a tool that informed, educated, and supported travelers throughout their journey—setting the foundation for the challenge, research, design, and final outcomes that follow.
14,568 users visited the app landing page and average time on page: 1:40
147%
year-over-year revenue increase
Ticket revenue influenced by the app increased from $278,552.56 (2022) to $687,861.57 (2023)
198%
increase in users
Traffic from the app to the ticket landing page grew from 29,026 users (2022) to 86,564 users (2023)
$32,804.45
in revenue
The app-focused landing page directly contributed $32,804.45 in revenue
The Challenge
Grand Canyon West (GCW) is home to the famous Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped glass cantilever bridge that extends 70 feet from the Grand Canyon wall and allows visitors to see 4,000 feet down to the floor. It’s a bucket list destination that attracts millions of domestic and international travelers each year. Due to a remote location, and the fact its name is in close resemblance to Grand Canyon National Park that is about 3 hours away, there is brand confusion in the marketplace.
Making matters more challenging, it has three attractions (Eagle Point with the Skywalk, Hualapai Point with the Zipline, and Guano Point with the Highpoint Hike) that are spread out and require provided shuttle services. Moreover, GCW is a tribal enterprise of the sovereign Indian Nation of the Hualapai Tribe, offering one-of-a-kind opportunities to interact with Indigenous peoples and learn about their culture and heritage.
Research & Analysis
Research focused on both user needs and cultural storytelling. I partnered with our content and creative specialists to better understand the app’s target audience and collaborated with the client to ensure cultural accuracy in presenting Hualapai history. Using tools like Optimal Workshop, Miro, and SimilarWeb, I conducted card sorting, user interviews, and a competitive analysis of similar destination apps to identify best practices for navigation and information display.
Insights from user behavior and expectations revealed that visitors often arrived unprepared for GCW’s remoteness and connectivity challenges. These findings directly informed the app’s structure, content organization, and interactive features—prioritizing navigation, education, and storytelling to create a more seamless and culturally grounded experience.
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Solution & Design
The app was created to build brand awareness while providing visitors with information to help them experience the attractions and learn about the tribe. Our goal was to provide a visual representation to show how far GCW is from the National Park, as well as how far apart certain attractions are from one another within GCW to help visitors be better prepared for the experiences. The app also provided an outlet to keep guests entertained and informed while they waited in line to access attractions.
The map provided plot points with links to learn more about each attraction, and a page about the tribe. We interviewed a Hualapai Elder and an ethnobotanist from the Hualapai Cultural Center to create videos that highlighted Hualapai traditions to give visitors a richer experience through understanding the connections between the river, plants, and tribal traditions.
Video Integration
Over several years, Madden built a relationship with the Hualapai Tribe. Initially met with skepticism and caution, we had to establish trust by engaging in genuine conversations in person and virtually to demonstrate our commitment to preserving and accurately portraying their culture.
As trust developed, members of the Hualapai Tribe began to feel more comfortable sharing their stories and traditions with us. It was a journey that demanded a willingness to adapt to their pace. Ultimately, the collaboration proved to be a rewarding and enlightening experience that allowed us to share the richness of the Hualapai culture with the world through videos shot at the Hualapai Cultural Center and Grand Canyon West.
Deployment
Outside of small paid efforts and inclusion on the website as well as printed ads through QR codes, our goal was to send a “Know Before You Go” email that directly linked to the new app, so we could manage consumer’s expectations before they arrived on-site at GCW.
The Grand Canyon is magical due to its remoteness, which also leads to limited connectivity. We needed a way to get the app on visitors’ smartphones before they arrived to find they might not have wifi. We developed the “Know Before You Go” email campaign to reach consumers who have already purchased a ticket to GCW, but have not shown up yet.
This email allows us to get the app in front of the upcoming visitor for download where wifi is present. Once the app is downloaded to a smartphone, the visitor can access all of the information at GCW with or without a wi-fi connection. The app provided the necessary information to help visitors manage expectations before they showed up in-market and to be a resource to help them navigate the attractions when they are at GCW. We pull a customer list every Monday for new ticket purchasers and send the email.
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Research & Analysis
Research focused on both user needs and cultural storytelling. I partnered with our content and creative specialists to better understand the app’s target audience and collaborated with the client to ensure cultural accuracy in presenting Hualapai history. Using tools like Optimal Workshop, Miro, and SimilarWeb, I conducted card sorting, user interviews, and a competitive analysis of similar destination apps to identify best practices for navigation and information display.
Insights from user behavior and expectations revealed that visitors often arrived unprepared for GCW’s remoteness and connectivity challenges. These findings directly informed the app’s structure, content organization, and interactive features—prioritizing navigation, education, and storytelling to create a more seamless and culturally grounded experience.
