DENVER ZOO CASE STUDY
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Best of Breed
In 1896, a small, orphaned black bear named Billy Bryan became the first resident of Denver Zoo, which today is home to 4,000 different animals, representing 700 species, on an 80-acre site in Denver’s historic City Park. With modern exhibits and internationally recognized conservation programs, Denver Zoo has become the state’s most popular cultural attraction, drawing more than 1.6 million visitors annually.
Overview
Denver Zoo wanted Malenke | Barnhart’s help creating a best-of-breed website to reflect its personality, showcase events and exhibits, increase memberships and donations, and ultimately, help forward its mission of securing a better world for animals through human understanding.
Challenge
Denver Zoo challenged us to redesign the zoo’s site to:
- Teach kids and parents about animals and conservation.
- Make the site fun for kids so they visit—and tell their friends.
- Entice people to join, support and visit the zoo.
- Provide user self-service options to reduce calls to the zoo.
- Enable easy updates of constantly evolving content.
Solution
Malenke | Barnhart created a new site that:
- Expresses the zoo’s fun, energetic personality through large, rotating animal photos and an African theme.
- Conveys the zoo’s undying vigor for conservation and making the world a better place.
- Educates and entertains young and old alike.
- Offers clear navigation to help users find what they’re looking for easily.
- Highlights key events in an easily updateable home page area.
Upshot
Results and recognition poured in:
- Webby Awards, Top 5 in the world for its category.
- Nearly 40% increase in Web traffic.
- Increase in zoo visits and memberships.
- Exponential decrease in calls to the zoo for information.
Additional Projects
After www.denverzoo.org launched, we completed a host of additional projects for Denver Zoo:
- Ongoing maintenance and usability improvements to www.denverzoo.org.
- Whose Poo?! game design and development.
- Mobile application design and development.
- Asian Tropics microsite design and development.
- Zooper Hero microsite design and development.
- ZooLights signage and print and online ads.
- Zoomily print, online and radio ads.