Richards Packaging

• Interactive Solutions
• Web Design

Client

Design Firm

Project Role

• Concept Development
• Information Architecture
• Interface Design
• Project Management
• Prototyping
• Usability Testing
• Wireframing

Brief
Richards Packaging is one of North America’s largest glass container manufacturer and distributor. In business for over 100 years, the Richards Packaging website was developed and unchanged since 1999. Our client sought out for a site redesign – not only an aesthetic face-lift, but an improved online catalogue for their products.

Due to the fact that Richards Packaging had two separate sites (a corporate and a catalogue) that interlinked to each other, there were numerous inconsistencies to the navigation. A site analysis and proposal document was prepared and presented to our client. A new site structure and design theme was proposed, combining the corporate site with the online catalogue portion.

Process
Working closely with the Executive Vice President, CFO, and the IT Lead, the site redesign was completed in 8-10 weeks with an online catalogue back-end system. A Flash-based map of North America was created to display distribution centers and plants. This was accompanied by a text-based location listing to preserve Search Engine Optimization for the site.

It was also apparent that the master catalogue did not relevantly show customers which location a product is available at. So after the redesign, a second phase was proposed for the website to have the ability to create sites/pages for distribution and plant locations across North America. Each location was given back-end access to their location page(s) and the catalogue management system.

Delivery
Leveraging off the new theme and content/catalogue management system from redesign, a location management system was built on top of this to create location pages and users. The initial catalogue management system became a master catalogue for each location to sync content with. Location admins were able to take synced product content and modify details according to the availability in their location. The location pages and catalogue were seamlessly integrated into the homepage navigation and Flash map, without affecting corporate content on the website and enhancing a front-end customer’s browsing experience. The new system drove more sales toward individual location centers and decreased the amount of coordination workload and involvement from corporate staff.

Collaborators