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Coastalwatch Plus

Coastalwatch was a leading Australian surf forecasting and surf community website. We implemented their user experience design and developed their premium subscription service, Coastalwatch Plus.

Client
Coastalwatch
Industry
Enterprise
Service types
Content and UX
Drupal and Web Development

Context

When Coastalwatch decided to transform their popular free website into a subscription-based service (Coastalwatch Plus), the first phase was to conduct a study. The company looked at what exactly their diverse users would be prepared to pay for.

We were initially engaged to undertake this study. However, our responsibilities quickly expanded to include leading the information architecture, design and project management of Coastalwatch’s internal development team.

“Our aim was to create a premium subscriber service of our existing website coastalwatch.com. We wanted to start charging for content that we had been giving away for 15 years - a mammoth proposition!”

– Russell Holt, Coastalwatch Digital Manager

The solutions

A critical component of the Coastalwatch Plus launch was building a website that users were prepared to pay for. We identified a number of archetypal user profiles, interviewed multiple users within each category, and refined the suite of offerings within the Coastalwatch Plus site based on the qualitative research we gathered.  

The Coastalwatch content management system was built by the internal development team with .NET. Our team ensured the user experience and design approach came to life as intended by Creative Director, Ben Hockley. 

This was an incredibly complex build. Excellent communication and the ability to collaborate ensured the internal team were able to keep pace with the requirements. 

Once completed, the website management reins were handed back to the internal development team. 

The results

To measure their outcomes and return on investment, Coastalwatch Plus had very specific targets around sign up numbers. The new site and sign up numbers exceeded these targets. 

“It worked. We moved into a normal production cycle after it was launched live successfully to the public, with a sign up rate that we are excited about.”

– Russell Holt, Coastalwatch Digital Manager

The site is a testament to our team's complex user experience consulting and design capability, as well as the complex development projects we manage with interdisciplinary teams in disparate locations.

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