Project Summary
This manufacturer of outdoor blinds, awnings and retractable roofing products have been trading for 160 years. They have seen impressive growth and now need to modernise their systems to meet new demand. They needed a website that showcased their premium product and service offering and allowed trusted partners to access resources.
The Challenge
A growing 160-year-old business with ambitious digital transformation goals.
Modernising the traditional
A manufacturing business that knows it needs to update its systems to meet modern customer expectations.
Multiple customer groups
A strong dealership network in place with ambitions to grow a direct consumer pipeline.
Showcasing quality
A wealth of outstanding case studies exist but currently showcasing them effectively is difficult.
Research & Discovery
James Robertshaw has a long heritage built on relationships with its partners. They are masters of their craft and produce a premium product range. A big part of learning and discovery for us was delving deep into the family-run businesses processes and values. It’s really important for us to understand the reasons behind a company wanting to make a transformational change. We do that in a number of ways.
Stakeholder Workshops
Our discovery workshops used empathy mapping, red route and card sorting exercises to delve into understanding the differences between the company’s various customer groups.
Understanding Users
We conducted video interviews with key partners and sent questionnaires to hundreds of customers. The results of which gave us valuable insight into buying habits and needs.
SEO Auditing
We conducted keyword analysis and competitor research to ascertain how the business is currently performing in search and where improvements could be made.
Persona Development
The culmination of the discovery work allowed us to create well-rounded personas. This gave us clear insight into the user groups as we moved into the UX phase of the project.
Userism focus on user experience and human behaviour design when building digital products
User Experience & Wireframing
We used the insights gained during project discovery to inform our experience design work. Understanding the user’s intentions gives us a starting point to consider how we can craft an online experience that provides what they are looking for and delights along the way. We start by considering the overall ‘zoomed out’ experience, before looking more closely at the details of each page.
Customer Journey Mapping
The persona development work helps us to plan user journies for customers to follow that helps them learn about product offerings whilst offering insight into the company’s heritage and values.
Planning & Content Architecture
The content design for each page builds a narrative that supports the customer’s journey as they learn more about James Robertshaw, their products and capabilities.
Wireframing & Prototyping
A website wireframe shows a blueprint for the layout and content. We use this to test the flow of the pages and clickable elements are added to make it interactive.
User Interface Design
Once user journeys had been crafted and we were happy with the structural layout of each page, we moved on to UI design. We must consider the companies brand image (and in this case, its strong historical heritage) and ensure it remains consistent across all new customer-facing channels. Existing brand guidelines, colours, use of imagery and rich media content all factored into this important phase.
Building On Their Brand
James Robertshaw has a strong brand history to consider. We had to think carefully about how we built on this with new ideas.
Colour Usage
Building on brand guidelines, we added some supporting tones to create a versatile palette for digital.
Fonts & Typography
A mix of serif and sans-serif fonts were chosen that blend modern type trends with historical references.
Heading 1
Cardo Serif BoldPrimary Body
Cardo Serif RegularSecondary Body
Montserrat Sans Serif MediumRich Media Content
James Robertshaw has a wealth of rich media content which helped to create striking content backdrops.
Layout & Composition
James Robertshaw has a wealth of rich media content which helped to create striking content backdrops.
The Final Result
We’ve created a bold and striking website that makes use of the company’s rich media content to great effect. Showcasing a premium product range with supporting content that makes clear this is a business with family at its heart and craftsmanship (built on 160 years of tradition) in its core value proposition. This is a customer-facing portal that bridges traditional heritage and ambitious transformation plans.
Aesthetics & Layout
A slick, modern UI to highlight beautiful imagery and video content. Building on the brand image with a fresh update.
Premium Product Showcase
The company is now able to showcase its product ranges, fully utilising its rich content and providing stunning case studies of previous projects.
Dedicated Trade Hub
A password-protected resource hub for trusted partners to learn from and obtain important sales and installation guides, pricing, help and service information.
The End Product
James Robertshaw now has an online presence that reflects the same quality and heritage of the rest of their business. The website serves as a starting point for new customer acquisition where users can learn about the company and its product ranges. Whilst the trade hub gives long-standing partners a reason to return again and again.
