OzKids goes live

OzKids is officially live. While we love sinking our teeth into heavy enterprise architecture and corporate backend systems, it is always incredibly rewarding to launch a project that solves a practical, everyday problem for local families. Here is a quick look at what the OzKids platform is all about and why we loved working on it.

The Weekend Scramble

If you are a parent, you already know the drill. It is Thursday afternoon, the school holidays are looming (or you just have a free weekend coming up), and you desperately need to find something to keep the kids entertained.

Historically, finding reliable information on local activities meant digging through fragmented community forums, texting other parents for recommendations, or trying to decipher old flyers pinned to a local community board. It is a frustrating and time-consuming process.

Enter OzKids

We helped launch OzKids to completely eliminate that scramble. The vision was simple but highly ambitious: create Australia's absolute most comprehensive online guide for everything related to kids' activities.

You can check it out right now at http://www.ozkidsactivities.com/.

We designed the platform to act as a centralized, highly searchable directory where parents can easily filter through massive amounts of local data. Instead of jumping between ten different websites, parents can now find everything in one unified portal. The site covers all the major bases, including:

• Local Classes: Everything from after-school swimming lessons to weekend art and music workshops.
• Events & Entertainment: School holiday programs, local fairs, museum exhibits, and family-friendly shows.
• Birthday Party Venues: A total lifesaver for parents trying to organize a party and find reliable local entertainers without the usual stress.

Built for Busy People

From a technical standpoint, a directory is only as good as its search functionality. When you are dealing with a nationwide database of venues, dates, and event categories, the underlying architecture has to be snappy.

Our focus was on creating a clean, highly intuitive user interface that handles heavy data filtering without lagging. It had to work just as smoothly for a busy parent scrolling on their mobile phone in the school pickup line as it does on a desktop computer at home.

Getting a community portal of this size off the ground is a massive milestone. If you are an Aussie parent looking to fill up your weekend calendar, or if you just want to see our latest web portal in action, head over to the site today and take a look around.