After successfully winning the credentials pitch, we were appointed to create a new website for them in March 2019.

We worked closely with their whole team to fully understand how the organisation worked, what the website needed to do for them and, most importantly, what it was like for the audiences, including those who wanted to come for a one-off event and those who were regular visitors.

Through workshops and discussions we began to build a picture of their audiences and what would attract and wow them. Discover is unusual in that its ‘audience’ is young children. So the site needed to be perfectly pitched at their parents, guardians and carers. And that audience would be constantly shifting as their children grew out of the target age group.

It was clear that the website needed to be slick and intuitive, especially on mobile devices, allowing quick navigation for  time-poor parents.

And the whole site had to embody the sense of play and adventure that is the essence of a day at this incredible story centre.

Perhaps the most knotty problem to try to untangle was around ticketing.

The team at Discover had spent years adapting and wrangling with a previous ticketing provider but the solution was always a compromise. With a move to a new provider (Spektrix) they wanted a solution that was led by the needs of their audiences, not the limitations of the ticketing system.

Unlike most venues, visitors to Discover have to be accompanied (by a guardian or parent). They also need to have bought a day-pass, giving them access to the story centre, if they want to visit a special exhibition or be part of an event (many of which have additional costs and tickets).

Our solution was a “Build Your Day” ticketing concept enabling visitors to easily book a visit on a named date with easy options to purchase additional events for their visit.

We worked closely with the team at Spektrix to work out what was possible and what was practical.

Our solution utilises our own adapted version of their API to sort through ticketing details, reveal availability and marry multiple bookings across different events. It’s a complex set-up that makes the process simple and intuitive for users.

The team at Discover are passionate about delivering a magical experience to every child that comes through the door. The quality of the website was important to every member of staff. So we involved relatively large groups in every stage of the design and development process.

And, as they signed-off the budgets, we were also keen to make sure we presented the solutions in person to the board of trustees.

After ten months of discovery, design, and development, the new website went live in September 2019.