Testing the Magic at Walt Disney Imagineering
It takes more than faith, trust, and pixie dust to test a Disney theme park attraction. How does Walt Disney Imagineering ensure quality experiences for their guests? Janna Loeffler faced this challenge when she joined Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI). Since 2015 Janna has led the testing effort on some of Disney’s most complicated show and interactive systems. She describes the history of show software development and testing within WDI and discusses how to implement the right choice of quality solutions when working with different types of software. Learn how to assess the bigger picture, determine who your customer really is, and stretch yourself outside of your title and comfort zone to deliver a complete quality solution. Janna discusses helping WDI realize they needed more than testing; they needed an end-to-end quality solution that started before development and lasted past the release. Join Janna as she describes testing the technologies—or magic, as Disney cast members call it—behind some of Disney’s most popular theme park attractions.
In her more than fifteen years of software quality experience, Janna Loeffler has worked for companies including Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Gambro, Campus Management, and Emerson Process Management. In 2011, she joined the Walt Disney Company's Quality Assurance group for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Digital. While working with the Digital group, Janna was responsible for testing many of Disney's Parks and Resorts websites and the My Disney Experience mobile application. Janna then moved into software development as a software development engineer in test, helping to develop many of the automated tests for the Walt Disney World website. She joined WDI as a Show Software Test Engineer in 2015 and has since taken on the role of Quality Lead, overseeing development operations and show software testing.