Today, we launched the new Two Oceans Aquarium website. It’s an odd thing to look back on, especially since in many ways the work only really starts now. But reflection holds many valuable lessons and learning is certainly something we’ve been doing a lot of over the past month.
Right at the start of our journey together, we asked Two Oceans Aquarium staff members to describe their place of work. Flow took care to use their phrases and ideals in its approach to design and content management. Staff members saw the Aquarium as “magic in the water”, as representing “effortless elegance”; they thought it was “the best underwater attraction in South Africa” and “the Tate Museum of fish”.
Development of the website then began with a brand-new design that captured the modern, hi-tech aspects of the Two Oceans Aquarium, while seducing visitors with beautiful slideshows. The visual impact of the site encourages visitors to engage with the content and inspires them to not only visit the Aquarium, but to also take action in their own lives.
It’s with the Aquarium’s vision in mind that we created the comprehensive Species & Exhibits section of the website, a veritable marine-wiki that we can call our own. The Aquarium was instrumental in supplying the great visual and factual resources that we’ve accumulated and processed into an easy-to-access but hard-to-leave format.
Fascinating and beautiful, the creatures of the Two Oceans Aquarium deserved a website that does justice to their endless complexity and inter-connectedness. To date we have 88 stunning species profiles, carefully categorised and brimming with facts, which link back to the exhibit pages relevant to the species. If you thought the Aquarium was all about fish, think again: it also has penguins, moorhens, bulbuls and frogs (lots of frogs) under its roof.
Education is very high on the Aquarium’s list of priorities and to that end we’ve taken extra care to make the Species & Exhibits section of the website detailed, accurate, informative and, above all, a pleasure to navigate.
“Connection” is another key term for the Aquarium: the connection of oceans to land and the connection of people to nature. It’s an idea that formed the basis of the user journey – where visitors come to not only be entertained and awed, but also to be informed and reconnected to the natural wonder of this place, where two oceans meet.
To add value to the learning experience, the Teachers & Students section of the website is highly interactive, with booking forms, booklists, downloadable project resources and activity guides for every age and almost every purpose. From Fun & Games to Grade 12 Life Sciences revision, all the Aquarium’s top-notch facilities now have an online home that’ll do them justice.
Regardless of your stance on it, social networking is an aspect of modern life that can’t be ignored and our programmers went to the ends of the Earth to accommodate each of the major ones. Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all have a home on the home page and our ongoing relationship with the Aquarium will mean lots of networking from our side. We’re already trawling Flickr and YouTube uploads for the best in Two Oceans Aquarium photography and videography – going the extra mile to connect Aquarium visitors to their experience.
Our e-marketing contract with the Aquarium will also mean that Flow gets to learn about, and share details of, the interesting lives of marine creatures – did you know that an octopus can move through any hole that its eye can fit through? – and we’ll also be exploring video-making avenues. Exploration at its best!
From a development and content side, we learnt as much about making websites as we did about hagfish (one word: gross). Primary, secondary, tertiary and utility navigation became buzzwords as we worked around the clock to find the slickest, chicest solution to all the potential pitfalls that content of this kind poses.
Stephen Frank’s calendar was the source of many hours of gleeful programming and tracking down the correct plural form of “octopus” likewise provoked heated debates (the answers are octopuses, octopi or octopodes … but we’re going with octopuses).
All in all, the process of building this site – of which we are incredibly proud – proved that “learning can be fun” is no cheap marketing ploy.
Upon seeing the new site, this is what the client had to say:
“Thank you for the most beautiful site. I couldn’t wait to log on this morning and see the site live in all its glory. I am really amazed at how you managed to pull it together in such a short time,” said Helen Lockhart, Two Oceans Aquarium’s communications and sustainability manager.