Last year, the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway (TMAC) closed for five weeks to upgrade its cable cars. This year, it decided to upgrade its website too, and the brand-new look for www.tablemountain.net went live today, 1 October 2014.
The project took about nine weeks to complete, and involved a team of Flowstars from both the Cape Town and Johannesburg offices, and TMAC. Working closely with TMAC's marketing manager, Collette van Aswegen, we're proud to show off our new baby to the world.
"I'm quite excited about the new site," says Collette. "It's bright, it's new, it's fresh. It's easy to find information and we've used analytics to put the kind of info that people are looking for upfront.
"Being responsive is great, as the site now works well for tablets and mobile phones, too."
As well as the obvious cosmetic changes, and the move towards responsive design, there are a number of smaller, back-end upgrades that should make users' experience faster and more efficient (and make Flow's content team quite happy, too).
Flow's Stuart Buchanan was in charge of content, Ryan Levenson took care of the design and Alex Cowling was the chief developer. Leanne Pohlmann was the project manager, and ensured that everything progressed smoothly.
"I'm feeling proud of our achievement in showcasing this popular and beautiful attraction in a slick and modern website," says Leanne. "The information architecture was carefully considered in the design phase to ensure that the most important and relevant information is easy to access."
Ryan elaborates: "We approached the design with the idea of creating two levels of engagement: the first is easy access to information, for the user searching for vital tourist information; the second level is highlighting the personality of the mountain by promoting in the design the Cableway's blogs and social network activity."
Indeed, the website has put social top of mind. You'll find handy links to TMAC's social networks at the footer of every page, as well as social buttons at the top, in order to share what you like with your friends.
"I'm particularly proud of the new site," says Alex. "It really forced me out of my comfort zone and I was able to achieve some cutting-edge trends. With projects like these, it's really important to stick to the mobile-first strategy. I'm really happy with the outcome."
The site has seen a steady increase in online ticket sales over the years, and we've made sure this process remains simple for those who are headed for the cable car. Table Mountain is also one of the New7Wonders of Nature, and so we've made sure that the site highlights this important achievement. Responsible tourism is also very important to the Cableway, and Flow is proud to help promote this. Lastly, the Cableway runs a number of specials throughout the year, including the ever popular Birthday Special and Sunset Special, and it was important to highlight these.
"The Flow guys here in Cape Town are am amazing team, and it's really fantastic to work with them," says Collette. "We really co-crafted what the end result is on that website."
But what does the boss think? TMAC's managing director, Sabine Lehmann, emailed us from her office at the Cableway: "I really love the new look and feel. Well done! It's clean and crisp and easy to read, and makes me want to go up ... and I am seated right here!"
The Cableway may be turning 85, but its website is just a baby. Go check it out at www.tablemountain.net.
