Every year the Zesty Account Management Team manage the launch plan, ensuring a seamless transition into each new season. This includes feature integrations, importing new data and updating design elements. “We have worked with Zesty for a number of years, building upon the experience and success of previous years to ensure the Cúl Camps site is continuously progressing.” Sean Gannon, National Cúl Camps Coordinator – GAA
Case Study
GAA Cúl Camps
Partnering with the GAA to spearhead a digital transformation of their booking engine, management system, and bespoke analytics dashboard, enabling users to seamlessly book thousands of children to participate in Gaelic football camps across Ireland.
What we did:
- Digital Strategy
- User Experience
- User Interface Design
- Symfony development
- Systems Integration
- Project Management
The Client
Cúl Camps is the GAA’s action-packed and fun-filled summer scheme programme, an all-Ireland initiative with involvement from over 1,200 camps, managed by 60 camp coordinators and over 7,000 coaches.
The Brief
We have worked in partnership with GAA on the Cúl Camps project for almost 20 years. At project outset our Project Team facilitated a Requirements Workshop to ensure we fully understood the requirements and scope of the project. Each year GAA collect feedback from end users and internal Content Management System (CMS) users on usability of the website. GAA then share the information collated to assist with goal setting and User Experience (UX) understanding. This information is vital in order to refine and improve the website year on year.
Further to this our extensive scoping and analysis phase ensured we had a comprehensive understanding of the pain points within the booking process and enabled us to improve these for users.
What We Did
To improve both the front and back-end functionality of the booking process we decided to build the new website using Symfony. The original site was built on Handson, a proprietary CMS developed by Zesty over 20 years ago. However, we recognised that adopting Symfony, an open-source and widely used technology, would be more advantageous for future-proofing and portability. After extensive research and analysis, we overhauled the front-end user registration and booking, simplifying the flow and the functionality. We identified a higher than average drop off rate on the previous registration and booking process and as a result the booking process was refined and streamlined. A key addition was the ability to add multiple children to multiple summer camps on a single booking.
We also worked alongside the Cúl Camps Team to simplify the pricing model and ensure the multiple booking/ child discount model was clear.
We simplified the booking process to five steps;
Parent/Carer > Add Kid(s) > Add Camp(s) > Review > Pay & complete
Other key requirements of the booking process were facilitated within the new site: transfer between camps, cancel a registration, add multiple children and add multiple camps.
To support GAA's commitment to inclusivity, we created the additional functionality behind their booking system for inclusive camps for children with additional needs - an initiative launched in 2024.
We integrated Sonata as the chosen CMS to manage site content. We built a custom dashboard to concisely and clearly present key information to CMS users. The custom dashboard displays key data at a glance for camp coordinators, Finance Team and Administrators.
Cúl Camps is an incredibly busy application, powered by multiple servers collecting lots of log data. Typically, logfiles are very long text files that are difficult to interpret, search or read. To assist with increasing demand and help the team identify key events, such as failed payment attempts, we integrated Graylog. Graylog is a centralised log management solution that collates all the data into an easy-to-use dashboard based on key events we create relevant to each client.
To monitor the health of the servers, we integrated NetData, a real-time data monitoring tool helping us to mitigate against any future potential problems.
Design
The website visual Design is clear and uncluttered, adhering to Cúl Camps brand guidelines and utilising the brand colour palette. We ensured the navigation was simple and intuitive, ensuring time poor users can complete their required tasks quickly and efficiently. A key priority of the site Design was to ensure prominence was placed on Kellogg’s branding as principal sponsor of the programme.
To assist yearly Board meetings, we created a bespoke online annual review dashboard that can easily be updated internally with highlights, recent images, statistics and updates.
Accessibility
As part of our commitment to visitor satisfaction, we place utmost importance on site Accessibility. We have an exceptional record in developing websites that comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and are accessible to all users regardless of physical or technological readiness. Accessibility is tested throughout the whole design and development process – from visual design to front end development and prior to go live.
