Precisely Tailored Web Site Design & Web Software Development

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

challenge

Redesign six Believe It Or Not Museum websites for Ripley’s Entertainment. The timeline is 6 sites in 30 days, so an extremely effective strategy is needed to produce the desired result. Each site needs to reflect the overall brand while still maintaining a unique personality geared toward a specific location. Regular and group ticket sales, as well as links to their other area attractions are of substantial importance, as is the ability to capture user information. We’d like full integration with our existing social networking entities and also to be able to regularly update the Blog page, independent of our web developers.

process

Aeon Blu met with the Ripley’s team and implemented a discovery process to best determine their needs and goals. Our project approach was multi-tiered. We needed to determine the balance between corporate and weird/gross/unbelievable, how each location would stand out from the others, how to best incorporate Twitter, FlickR and other social networking entities and interactive features on each site and also how hands-on the managers of each location would be. With just 30 days to complete 6 full sites, we had to find the most time-effective manner of going from concept to live. In our discovery phase, we had a technical team researching open-source and other 3rd party tools for integrating remote site content from sources like WordPress, FlickR, Twitter and more. That initial investment yielded a big pay off, because we were able to use existing code, adding only slight modifications in order to aggregate the outlying data into one unified design.

After going through the process of creating a wireframe of the main page, we could then utilize that main design as a template for the other pages and sites to provide a consistent feel throughout all sites, while being inclusive of all the informational aspects Ripley’s needed to have apparent. We worked closely with the marketing and brand managers at Ripley Entertainment to freshen and unify the look of the Believe It Or Not properties or “Odditoriums.” We gave each site a rich, colorful treatment to reflect the museum’s unique locale while keeping a uniform structure that enables users to quickly access salient info quickly and easily. Our team designed and developed a clean interface that enables interactivity and an interesting, enjoyable user experience including maps, news, FAQ, hours & pricing, FlickR, Twitter and Blog feeds and video.
Of important note is our project management. Throughout the entire project, we took the initiative in guiding meetings and dialogue with the client, always listening to their needs and communicating effectively with them to establish priorities and focus on everything from design details to deadlines.

result

Once the design was in place, allowing Ripley’s goals of providing information through their site and through social networking entities, we then created the multiple secondary pages as well as the designs for the other museums. Making use of this system enabled us to streamline the process, providing a cost-effective methodology. We created an interface that serves their up-to-the-minute updating; the management of these sites is reduced to very simple configuration files for pointing to the various data sources, and a simple content management back-end. The ultimate result was what we always have in mind: a successful go live and a very happy client!

• Ripley's St. Augustine
• Ripley's Hollywood
• Ripley's San Fransisco
• Ripley's Ocean City
• Ripley's San Antonio
• Ripley's GrandPrairie