Case study
Interactive Learning Through Digital Experience
A multi-platform ecosystem unifying kiosks, ticketing, and mobile engagement to elevate conservation outreach.
Overview
Seattle Aquarium partnered with AppStudio to reinvent the visitor journey through a single cloud-native platform that drives interactive learning, streamlines operations, and extends educational impact beyond the waterfront campus—touchscreen exhibits, mobile web, robust ticketing, and a headless CMS delivered with enterprise-grade security and accessibility.
The challenge
Fragmented exhibit tech, siloed ticketing, and accessibility mandates were limiting engagement and revenue.
- Device-specific exhibit codebases made content updates slow and costly.
- Legacy POS lacked modern APIs and mobile purchase support.
- WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility requirements for a public-facing nonprofit.
- Peak-season traffic risked downtime during marquee events.
The solution
We designed one digital backbone for every visitor touchpoint.
- 40+ kiosks on a React front end with GraphQL content playlists and offline cache.
- Unified ticketing and mobile passes with QR admission and real-time upsell prompts.
- Headless CMS so curators publish multilingual exhibit updates in seconds.
- Kubernetes on AWS with IaC, blue-green deploys, zero-trust IAM, and WCAG 2.1 AA validation.
The impact
Kiosks, ticketing, and mobile now feel like one seamless experience—boosting engagement and conservation outreach.
- Queue wait times fell as mobile purchases and QR admission scaled.
- Curators publish updates in minutes instead of weeks.
- Autoscaling handled a 4× traffic surge through summer peak.
- Foundation ready for AR overlays, donor campaigns, and IoT sensors.
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