Wacky Playland is a soft play centre in Kidderminster — the kind of business where most customers find you on their phone, make a quick decision, and either book or move on. Their existing website was built in-house on Wix. It had the essentials, but it wasn't doing the job it needed to do: getting families in through the door.

The brief was clear. Build something that works properly on mobile, organises all the information across a sensible number of pages, and makes it as easy as possible for a parent to find what they need and book.

Who the site is actually for

Before any design work, it's worth being specific about the visitor. For a soft play centre, that's usually a parent, on a phone, often one-handed, frequently in a hurry, and quite often mid-way through managing a toddler. They have a short list of questions — when are you open, how much is it, do you do parties, can I book now — and very little patience for anything that gets between them and the answers.

That profile decides everything downstream: how big the tap targets are, how much text goes above the fold, where the booking link sits, and how many taps it takes to get from landing to booked.

What the old site got wrong

The problems were the familiar ones for a DIY build in this sector. The layout hadn't been designed for mobile, which is where the overwhelming majority of the traffic comes from. Information about sessions, parties, prices and booking was spread around without a clear path through it. Booking — the single most valuable action on the entire site — wasn't front and centre. And the template look didn't convey the fun, welcoming, trustworthy feel a soft play centre trades on.

None of that means Wix is the villain. A DIY build gets a business online quickly, and for plenty of businesses that's enough. It stops being enough when the site is the main booking channel.

Fourteen pages, each with one job

The new site is fourteen pages, built from scratch. That sounds like a lot for a single venue, and it would be if the pages overlapped. They don't: multiple session types, party packages, FAQs, and location and parking information each get their own page, covering one thing clearly.

The advantage is twofold. A parent looking specifically for party packages lands on a page about party packages rather than scrolling a homepage that covers everything. And each page can rank for the thing it's actually about, instead of one homepage competing for every search at once.

Booking on every page, and easy to tap

Every page carries a visible, accessible link to book. Not tucked into a footer, not three clicks deep behind a menu. If someone decides to book while reading the FAQ page, they shouldn't have to navigate anywhere to do it.

The whole build was mobile first: tap targets big enough for one thumb, text readable without zooming, and layouts that adapt cleanly at every screen size rather than reflowing into something awkward at the sizes nobody tests.

Worth knowing: Google ranks your mobile site, not your desktop site. A site that works well on mobile doesn't just convert better — it ranks better too.

Making it feel like the place

Soft play is a fun, family environment, and the site needed to feel that way without becoming hard to use. Bright and energetic in the imagery and colour; calm and predictable in the navigation and layout. A parent who is tired and distracted should still be able to find the price of a Saturday session in about ten seconds.

What I'd take from this one

  • Design for the actual conditions. One hand, small screen, short attention, mid-tantrum.
  • Give the money action its own real estate. On every page, above the fold, big enough to tap.
  • More pages beats one long page when a business genuinely does several distinct things.
  • Brand feel and usability aren't a trade-off. Personality in the visuals, discipline in the structure.

The result

A booking-focused site that matches the energy of the business and gives parents a clear path from first visit to confirmed session. Live in two weeks, built to convert on the device families actually use.

Read the full case study for the complete breakdown, including the brief, the page structure and the client's own feedback.

Run a venue that takes bookings?

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