Web Design
Case Study
INNES REID
Innes Reid are one of Chesters leading independent finanial organisations. Having been established for over 40 years, they have built up a large client basae and are well respected in the city and beyond for honest advice.
CMS
WordPress
URL
DESIGN PROCESS
Innes Reid wanted a website that stood out from other financial services. Often they’re seen as quite formal. Innes Reid wanted to move away from that.
1. Time Management
Because of the unique nature of the new site design and graphics including third-party designers for these, timescales were more fluid than usual with the need to build in unforeseen delays.
2. Research
Innes Reid had conducted the market research into a new look site and what users were looking for – and also the look and feel on how they wanted to project themselves. They had completed this exercise with the help of an external marketing agency.
3. User Testing
A wireframe was designed to show the user journey and mock-up pages using InDesign were also made.
From this, five pages were then mocked up on a test domain so users could get a good look and feel for the new site.
4. Team Management
There were multiple stakeholders involved in the process that all had to be managed: the CEO of Innes Reid, the external marketing firm, and the external graphic designers for the characters.
The project management tool, Toggl, was used in this instance.
OUTCOME
My thought process behind this new site was to enable the site to standout from the usual more formal financial services in Chester and the local area.
The homepage graphics move as a gif giving it more of an interest but the theme is kept from the original site with such graphics.
The main menu is simple and clear using Open Sans and with the Poppins font used as the main headers.
The client and wealth manager login buttons are clear with each linking to a sub-domain of an external provider.
At the very top is another menu which includes their blog (called Insights).
The marketing company provided me with the brand standards guide that the site had to adhere to.
The final look of the site acheived its aim of a modern looking business that while professional also had a more human side to it.
OLD SITE DESIGN
As a comparison, the old site built using Magento 1 and has overlapping areas on the mobile site which could incur a Google penalty and the rendering on the mobile site doesn’t quite work.