GreenKayak
Environmental NGO dedicated to cleaning ocean waste across Europe through volunteers offering free kayak trips.
“ Their organized approach meant we saw eye to eye which made it easy for us to specify the requirements to be used for development. “
- Oke Carstensen (Co-founder)
Founded in 2017 GreenKayak is an environmental NGO that allows people to rent out a kayak in return for collecting trash from waterways. Currently operating in 5 countries in Europe, the past few years for GreenKayak has been a monumental success, with the eco-warrior movement spreading like wildfire.
We approached GreenKayak to help revamp their booking system. Our initial work with GreenKayak was helping maintain and tweak their existing WordPress site which soon moved into helping them migrate it to a custom built solution allowing them more control over their business and data. Our latest task has been to completely rebuild their booking system.
Efficient coordination for an ever-expanding global network, prioritising a seamless user experience.
To create a booking system that caters to all of GreenKayak’s needs and improves on several points from the previous booking system that was in place — focusing heavily on a seamless user experience. Green Kayak also requires a refined system to handle the task of managing staff and volunteers, especially in influx during peak seasonal periods. This system needs to be dynamic in terms of scalability and flexibility in order to minimize cost. Green Kayak also requires full control over the management of hosts, who will provide kayaks in various locations across several countries, especially in terms of calander data. This will be provided through the creation of an admin dashboard system that will give easy access to accurate information.
We set out with the following goals in mind:
- Implement a responsive design. Booking system must run smoothly across all devices, with strong navigational features that makes the booking process simple and efficient for any user.
- Deliver an effective dual-purpose admin dashboard. Green Kayak employees and volunteers must be able to see at a glance the data they need to drive towards their goals whilst also allowing hosts fine-grain control over their individual locations and bookings across 5 countries.
- Ensure professional journey for volunteers. A professional journey for volunteers booking a kayak that will hopefully raise the profile of Green Kayak’s brand. Changes made to Green Kayak’s website must also reflect this, and accommodate and promote the new booking system.
- Create an automated transactional email system. This must allow for sending of confirmation, cancellation and reminder emails to volunteers and calendar summaries to hosts in an automated fashion, requiring minimal to no input.
- Balance affordability with flexibility and scalability. Systems put in place to balance affordability with scalability and flexibility based on seasonal staff and volunteer changes.
A project that will make a real difference in fighting ocean pollution.
Green Kayak’s new booking system, and website changes launched in April 2020 in preparation for the upcoming kayaking season.
The website changes efficiently accommodate and promote the new booking system, and allow for smooth on-site navigation. Notable changes include reworking the layout of all menus, creation of new information pages (Groups, Jobs, FAQ etc.) and a prominent landing page layout that allowed Green Kayak to display current announcements (Important given the Covid-19 pandemic on-going at the time of launch).
The booking system and back-end dashboard launched with bookings implemented from five different countries across Europe. The booking system easily meets its specification of easy-flowing navigation, responsiveness, and scalability, and displays information both for volunteer hosts and staff in a clear, graphical format. Developyn is extremely proud to be part of this project and to have worked with Green Kayak towards making a difference with ocean pollution.
