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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.

Scott Steele, Marketing Director, Lan Su Chinese Garden

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.

Paul Weinert, Managing Principal / Founder at GRAYBOX

Our Services

GRAYBOX engaged with Lan Su Chinese Garden in efforts to help increase visitors by improving many aspects of their website.

Our Results

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