The Challenge
Open House New York (OHNY) is an annual weekend festival that encourages people of all ages and backgrounds to explore hundreds of historical and architectural sites throughout New York.
For the 2022 edition, they wanted to improve their planner experience so visitors could bookmark their sites of interest for the weekend with the help of a user registration system.
They also wanted the filters to load faster and a map view that boosts the visitor’s experience. Lastly, some of the sites participating had limited capacity, so we had to find a way to develop some restrictions to accomplish this.
The solution
We used a hybrid approach: A React with TypeScript application inside WordPress. OHNY was comfortable with WordPress’s editorial experience, so we relied on their API to communicate between services.
As for the maps, we trusted Mapbox’s solution and developed a custom integration. We also came up with a custom lottery system that helped solve the capacity restrictions in some of the buildings.
We used the WordPress registration system so visitors could bookmark their favorite spots to visit during the weekend.
The result
Thousands of visitors could enjoy this massive weekend event with the help of this new application. Many of them registered on the website and were able to retrieve their bookmarked spots as well.
On the other hand, we saved OHNY tons of their editors’ time as we helped them integrate another CMS into WordPress via a custom application.
Responsive and Map experience was also a plus for the visitors, considering many navigated the site through their mobile phones.