What We did
Background
Tourism Tasmania has been responsible for operating multiple websites over the years; including commercial travel distribution and retail travel distribution operations. In addition, the Authority plays a leading role in providing product, motivational and educational information both online and offline to business partners and consumers.
The Challenge
The project aim was to engage consumers, with the core objective of converting them to take a Tasmanian holiday. Glen Johnson, Future Medium's Managing Director, in collaboration with Tourism Tasmania established the following goals for the project:
- Create an online experience that is engaging, intuitive and user-friendly
- Align content with consumer needs and wants
- Facilitate the booking of holidays in Tasmania
- Meet information needs of trade and business
- Promote brand, experience and differentiation
- Assist in the adoption of product information for operators
- Successfully implement a new Content Management System (CMS) and integrate it with the new visual design
- Create a design allowing for easy modular enhancements
Solution
Future Medium conducted and managed comprehensive specification workshops, essential to clarify core project requirements. The workshops assisted in the re-design by identifying Tourism Tasmania's unique business needs and online position determined by online user groups needs.
Future Medium created a detailed conceptual, wireframe model after the initial specification. This process enabled key stakeholders to envisage navigating the completed site from the user's perspective, therefore grasping its functionality and opening up the table for further discussion before starting on artwork.
Future Medium addressed key issues by utilising a modular design facilitating easy management of the front-end and user interface. Future Medium also worked closely with Squiz.Net, to effectively integrate an open source CMS, facilitating easy and efficient management of the website.
Benefits
Future Medium was able to deliver a visually stimulating website applying commercially smart design, effectively aligned to the project goals and objectives. The use of innovative widgets and interactive panels were included to support a high level of functionality and content on the homepage.
Tourism Tasmania is extremely happy with the modular solution;
It allows us to continually update the interactive elements of the site. This advanced design ensures that Tourism Tasmania can continually evolve the website and present interactive features matched to the ever-changing needs of the sites users and the demanding tourism industry.
The modular design has also simplified their market research and testing of new online materials. The ease of use and modification of the websites front end has also made testing new concepts very efficient because the panels and widgets can be changed easily.
Handover
- The project is now managed internally by Tourism Tasmania.
