River Safari Adventure Buddy
River Safari is Asia’s one and only river-themed safari park, home to over 8700 animals from 260 species. Popular for exhibits such as the Amazon Flooded Forest—the largest freshwater aquarium in the world—the park receives over 1 million visitors annually.
A Unique Problem
Although the park was home to thousands of intriguing creatures, the exhibits were mostly viewing experiences. Visitors simply didn’t feel engaged enough.
An Adventure In The Making
After several rounds of discussions and brainstorming with the River Safari team, we decided to produce an audio tour app to elevate the park experience.
Laying out the functional objectives right at the start helped to guide the design, writing and development process.
#APPGOALS |
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Must add to the park experience, not disrupt it. |
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Intuitive interface to make it usable for visitors of all ages. |
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Provide value for visitors throughout their entire journey around the park. |
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Minimal load times—must facilitate zippy download packages. |
Introducing Canola the Manatee, Part-time tour guide, full-time friend.
The audio tour was also the perfect vehicle to allow visitors to be introduced to River Safari’s new brand mascot, Canola the Manatee.
Cast in the role of Adventure Buddy, her job was to show visitors around and tell them all sort of neat things about the park and animals.
Planning
These were our 3 guiding principles when planning the app’s user journey. Especially important, because we knew that the app would be used by kids as well as adults.
The Map In The App
Designing the map in the app based on the exact physical layout of the park allows visitors to use the app for navigation within the park.
Modular Content
We wrote and designed content in a modular format so that the River Safari team could add or remove content without breaking the tour narrative.
Scripting & Content
Guided by the animal experts of River Safari, our writing team crafted 7 different scripts based on 7 river systems, with specific profiles on nearly 200 different animals.
App Development
Having our app development partners onboard since the very first day was a huge advantage. Originally Us provided us with the necessary technical coordination and support throughout the project, ensuring that work flowed smoothly from creative to development phases.
Regardless of Race, Language or Religion
One of the biggest challenges came in translation—we had to ensure that every nuance and shade of meaning carried across 6 different languages so all park visitors could enjoy the audio tour content without compromise.
