Lan Su Chinese Garden: Online Strategy & Website Redesign
Lan Su Chinese Garden engaged with GRAYBOX to improve their website long-term. The team at Lan Su Chinese Garden wanted a site that was intricate and detailed, but simple upon first appearance. GRAYBOX worked with them to create a site better reflective of the atmosphere at the garden itself.
Overall Outcome
Lan Su Chinese Garden worked with GRAYBOX to improve their website to reflect specific characteristics of the popular Portland attraction.
The Results
GRAYBOX built Lan Su Chinese Garden an intricately designed site that increased visitor engagement to the site and the garden.
60%
Increase in Visitor Engagement
1,000's
Of New Online Ticket Sales
33%
Decrease in Bounce Rate
65%
Increase in Page Session Duration
The Overall Problem
Lan Su Chinese Garden began nearly 2 decades ago as more than just a botanic wonder in Portland. It quickly became a place for visitors traveling from far and wide to experience 2000-year-old Chinese traditions and establish Portland as a hub for cultural awareness and learning.
Lan Su Chinese Garden was looking for a new site design that would be able to better convey the subtle and beautiful intricacies of garden, itself. GRAYBOX architected and implemented a unique, modern site for Lan Su Chinese Garden as a way to better communicate with garden visitors and promote membership. The GRAYBOX team worked with Lan Su to understand their goals and brand vision when redesigning their site. They were intentional in managing every aspect of the project and maintenance of it following the project launch.
GRAYBOX impressed us from our very first conversation with immediately understanding what we wanted, even though we didn’t know it yet ourselves. From guiding us through a thorough self-discovery process to determine our exact needs to delivery of the finished site, GRAYBOX met and exceeded every goal and expectation we set. While some web companies are strong in some areas but weak in others, GRAYBOX hit the mark in all areas; from a design that bridged the difficult nature of showing who we are, elegant custom coding to craft elaborate web features we needed, and project management that was clear, precise and kept us on budget. We only wish we had more projects that we could fund so that we could continue to work with GRAYBOX.
Our Solution
In late 2012, GRAYBOX began the process of redesigning Lan Su Chinese Garden’s website and worked with Lan Su Chinese Garden on other projects following the redesign.
1. Brand Definition & Intended Plan
The GRAYBOX project manager worked with Lan Su Chinese Garden to outline the direction and goals of the new site. This was a collaborative process to ensure GRAYBOX had a clear understanding of the project. The GRAYBOX design team spent time going through the garden itself, gathering inspiration to create illustrations on the website reflective of the current offerings of the garden. Identifying the brand and replicating it via the new site would be an integral part of driving the customers to the garden from the site. GRAYBOX used Lan Su’s data results to create a specific project plan, analyzing user demographics, business goals and technology requirements for the site.
2. Wireframing & Visual Design of Multi-Lingual Website
Because of the intricacies going into the site, with various textures and imagery playing out the ambiance of the actual garden, GRAYBOX ensured the wireframing was well planned out and accurately designed. Although the site was intricate in many ways, the flow of the website was easy to use in order to simplify the navigation and visual presentation.
3. Project Management & Launch
The Project Manager at GRAYBOX worked with Lan Su Chinese Garden every step of the process. GRAYBOX regulated a dozen or more meetings and discussions, and that too within budget in a timely manner. With every new design integration or idea needed to be implemented, GRAYBOX came referred to the team at Lan Su for approval and idea generation. Even when it came to thoroughly understanding the garden’s audience base and designing customer personas, GRAYBOX worked to fully understand the ins and outs of not only what the garden offers, but what they do at Lan Su Chinese Garden that makes them unique to their visitors.
Lan Su has been a key partner for us over the last six years — we’ve been exceptionally proud to partner with this great Portland institution and highight all the cultural events they host there. From websites, to marketing to operations, we’re proud to Partner with Lan Su through it all.
Our Services
GRAYBOX engaged with Lan Su Chinese Garden in efforts to help increase visitors by improving many aspects of their website.
GRAYBOX created a website that increased Lan Su Chinese Garden’s visitors multifold, with engagement up 45-60% as a result.
The update and redesign ensured that their site was more in-line with their operational and mission needs. This included having created a website that was easily integrated with social media, with an increase ease of use for visitors to the site to find relevant and needed content. The ability to accurately show event related data via a calendar feed, a more stable and widely supported site content management system was created. Overall, the site did better at showcasing the unique look and beauty of Lan Su with illustrative photographs and subtle intricacies.
60%
Increase in Visitor Engagement
1,000's
Of New Online Ticket Sales
33%
Decrease in Bounce Rate
65%
Increase in Page Session Duration
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