01. THE CHALLENGE.
Would this become the ultimate test to either break us since something to go beyond our possibilities or would it bring us to the next level of online services’ design? Surely, this was going on in our heads when we were called by Pharmaengine, one of Asian biggest market players in biotechnology, to do their Chinese language webapp.
Almost a hundred pages in a briefing that would also expand to an exhaustive investors’ section asking us to implement detailed download sections. A news blog, of course, study timeline diagrams and graphs which display complex scientific information optimized for various devices. But, most of all, a clear need of a design concept!
02. THE UX PRINCIPLES
Well, this was one of the rare cases where it seems wise to us to totally ignore a briefing at least what regards the creative direction it seemed to prescribe. And to be honest, not one attempt was made in this direction. For there was no financial pressure, what had we to loose?
It became very quickly clear to us that what ever image like solution we would present, it would never keep up with the elegant, somewhat strict, fashion style as it is imposed by the almost classicist brand. Our feeling was totally different and we decided to follow its ways.
03. THE TYPOGRAPHY.
As it is in first line a Chinese website and app we felt the need to take special care of Chinese (traditional) typography. Carefully elaborated CSS rules provide for both languages, English and Chinese, an identical typographic feeling. This regards button sizes, headline breakpoints, text lengths, citations’ size relation and much more.
Today’s most advanced grid layout systems create a fresh magazine look. This makes sometimes dry information as the many regulatory stuff more attractive and easy to read. Last but not least, we emphasize also on users new to the materia and, most of all, add an emotional component to it. As it is not only about science, but about people!
04. THE PHARMAENGINE GUIDES.
So, yes, we did it! And we are particularly proud of having covered from end to end this also organizational enormous effort together with French and Chinese Pharmaengine crews. Speaking about organization: doing such a project it is of vital importance during all stages of development to hand out to the teams easily traceable documentations.
This regards besides regular summaries of Skype sessions, anytime accessible check lists of modification results and comprehensive guidelines covering the single teams’ needs. We are convinced that what may seem a side note here is one of the main determining success factors within web projects that run over a longer time period.
