Fresh From The Field: Hamilton Zoo — By Black Sheep Creative
Web design experts Black Sheep Creative have designed and delivered a new website with that packs a punch for Hamilton’s world-class Zoo and Nature Precinct Te Kaaroro.
Fresh from the Field is a weekly article series sharing fresh and inspiring work from the Design Assembly community. Want to submit your work to Fresh From The Field? Fill out the form here.
The brief
Hamilton Zoo is an iconic attraction for domestic and international visitors – delivering memorable adventures enjoyed by thousands of people each year. Following a stunning brand refresh and significant improvements to the physical visitor experience at Hamilton Zoo and Te Kaaroro Nature Precinct, Black Sheep Creative were given the opportunity to elevate the website to align with the enhanced physical spaces and visitor experience.
The digital solution needed to cover three key areas:
1. User experience (UX) research – to better understand how visitors prefer to buy their tickets and what drives online, versus on premises, ticket and experience purchases. etc.
2. Great UX design and delivery – utilise the UX research findings, the zoo’s vibrant imagery and highlight the diversity of interesting animals to ensure the Zoo’s online experience doesn’t just look great, but also helps users easily find the information they need.
3. Simple, supported editing in the backend and the integration of a new ticked purchasing system ‘Roller’ – to ensure the zoo’s communications and marketing team could easily configure content and the right ticketing information at the right time.
The UX Research
To make meaningful and measurable improvements to the zoo’s website Black Sheep Creative employed their design and development process to gain key UX insights. This process included:
- Information Architecture (IA) Tree Testing – to help users find information fast.
- Exit Intent Survey – to understand why users leave the “Buy Tickets” pages without completing their purchase.
- Customer Survey – to learn about users’ digital purchasing habits for zoo passes
- 1:1 Customer Interviews – to understand what factors people consider when buying passes and how they evaluate their experience.
Through this investigation Black Sheep Creative learnt:
- about the different types of visitors to the zoo – from tourist groups wanting to book ahead, to locals who didn’t see the need to pre-purchase tickets but discovered and could be prompted to book an encounter.
- lots of people wanted to know relatable personal information about the animals at the zoo – names, personalities, likes/dislikes, etc (Bonus – this information could also inform comms plans and nurture campaigns for repeat visitors.)
- the new website would be a great opportunity to introduce the Te Kaaroro Nature Precinct – giving the new and unfamiliar addition presence and context, and providing the Hamilton City Council (HCC) team who manage the zoo, a great foundation to rollout their comms strategy.
- most people expected to purchase tickets at the zoo and it was more important to use the website’s key real estate to provide visitor information rather than trying to increase revenue by encouraging users to buy tickets.
Great UX design and delivery
Armed with this information, Black Sheep Creative designed and delivered an optimised website that highlights the zoo’s animals and experiences. Showcasing the many reasons to visit with contextual prompts for buying tickets online as a “new normal” for those who hadn’t considered buying tickets online before.
Developed with usability in mind
Black Sheep Creative didn’t just design a great visitor experience, they provided the HCC team with a well-designed content authoring experience:
“We think this is often overlooked and when considering the design and experience of technology. We also need to consider the individuals who will be doing the Mahi.
We gave the zoo flexibility to create custom buttons. This brings the right ticket purchasing information before the user at the right time. This helped make sure users don’t need to take extra steps. Removing barriers to purchasing passes online.
We also designed the website in a ‘modular way’ to ensure the zoo were able to confidently create new pages. With custom elements for headers, sliders, call to actions, customisable forms and more. This means, a lot of time and thought went into all the different ways components can be used together. This ensures the zoo team aren’t limited to how they can configure their designs.” Says Adrian Neil, lead designer at Black Sheep Creative.
Designed to Thrive
Black Sheep Creative designed and delivered an optimised website that puts users first – it not only enhances the Hamilton Zoo visitor experience before they even walk through the gates – it also enables the zoo to improve the way they create awareness and inspire conservation actions in the community.
The Design Team
Adrian Neil – Lead Designer
Alex Simmons – Lead Developer
Keinen Wyatt – Project Manager
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Fresh from the Field is a weekly article series sharing fresh and inspiring work from the Design Assembly community. Want to submit your work to Fresh From The Field? Fill out the form here.
