This week, Table Mountain Aerial Cableway launched its brand new mobi site to give mobile viewers a better user experience. The site has all the features of the main website and is crammed full of useful information, including cableway operating status and a facility to buy tickets online.
Table Mountain Cableway marketing manager Collette van Aswegen said it was time to develop the mobi site since the number of people using smartphones and tablets is increasing at a rapid rate. In August this year, 32.25% of people viewing the tablemountain.net site accessed it using mobile devices (smartphones/tablets). Compared with the previous August, mobile users increased by 150.52% and tablet users by 74.1%.
The Cableway has been a client of Flow’s since 2010.
Flow project manager for Cape Town Leanne Pohlmann said: “The brief for the mobi site was to ensure that the most vital information pertaining to the Cableway’s business is delivered in a concise and functional manner. We were able to meet this objective by using the latest mobile technologies and designing a screen that is fluid and flexible, enabling devices with smaller or larger screens to view the content in the same way.”
A user accessing the site via a mobile device now has quick access to the following sections in order to plan their visit to one of the world’s New7Wonders of Nature:
- Buy tickets
- Operating status (weather updates, etc.)
- Plan your trip (getting there and what to bring)
- Directions
- Special offers and news (blog feed)
- Facilities
Alex Cowling, Flow’s head developer on the project, said that it’s always a great experience to develop for mobile. “I enjoyed working with the jQuery Mobile framework when building the mobile-optimised version of the Table Mountain website. The framework assisted in providing the client with the most compatible website for mobile devices. The web is shifting its focus a lot to mobile compatibility, and I’m excited to work on many more of these projects in the future.”
Said Van Aswegen: “We needed to make a digital leap, from giving our visitors a website designed for desktops – which enables them to purchase tickets online, to see our operational status and to book our venues – to an additional site with the same functionality but designed to work seamlessly with mobile devices.
“With so many people accessing the internet using mobile technology, it was an obvious step for us. Our aim is to have an accessible portal for our visitors to engage with.”
So next time you are driving around Cape Town and decide on a spontaneous trip up Table Mountain, whip out your smartphone or your tablet and head to: http://tablemountain.net/mobile/