Case study: Urban challenge

Urban challenge (www.urbanchallenge.co.za) wanted a snappy, energetic website that could help to promote their business and manage it at the same time.

Managing a stable of classes takes no small amount of organizational prowess, but a lot of the work is a great candidate for automation and this can seriously streamline the business and make it super competitive.

The design

The design was inspired by urban traffic signals (since urban challenge is all about using outdoor urban areas for social health and fitness). There are several neat slideshow effects embedded into the design, including the testimonials, which fade in and out and the list of benefits in the sidebar.

Large, clear writing and a visually simple design work together to make the offering appear as simple and intuitive as possible (even though the underlying business model is quite involved). Urban challenge, themselves are in complete control of their content and will make their own modifications to the information displayed on the front page - so check back every now and then to see how the site evolves.

Custom enhancements

The most important aspect however, was the ability to manage and organize clients, memberships and classes in an efficient but foolproof manner. The site has a number of custom features that allow clients to pitch up for a class and sign in in only a matter of seconds. Urban challenge are immediately able to access the clients attendance and compare it to their membership to ensure they are a) registered and b) within the bounds of their membership.

What it cost

Urban challenge purchased:

1. Grand package - includes complete deployment, configuration and setup of website and webserver at a cost of $150 plus an annual hosting fee of around $290
2. Web design (advanced) - includes complete design with graphics, HTML, CSS, etc at a cost of $650
3. Custom web development - includes all the customer, class and membership management features at a cost of $1350

It goes without saying that the website has the best SEO features available in the world and that it ustilizes all the industry best practices when it comes to caching and performance. The server performance is also the best of the best and the backend comes with full cPanel administrative features, amongst many other things.