About
- Corporate site
- Design
- Development
- FTSE 100
- IR Tools
- Strategy
Whitbread, a FTSE 100 company, is the owner of Premier Inn, the UK’s biggest hotel brand, and with a growing presence in Germany offering quality accommodation at affordable prices.
With over 35,000 employees who are passionate about making everyday experiences special for their millions of customers both in the UK and overseas.
Whitbread believes that a company needs to do more than just make profits, and are committed to being a force for good in all of the communities in which they operate.
The brief
While Whitbread’s previous corporate website was only a few years old, it had become out of date in terms of the content and messaging. From a design perspective, while the overall look and feel was largely on brand, many inconsistencies in layout and typography had crept in, impacting the overall user experience and website aesthetic.
Following a competitive tender, we were delighted to be appointed to the project in January 2021, with the new website going live three months later.
Key objectives:
- Review, refine and refresh the site architecture, content and pages, streamlining where appropriate
- Retain the overall look and feel while taking the opportunity to improve on design elements and user experience (UX)
- Home, landing and key pages to be updated to deliver a much more dynamic, engaging and rewarding experience
- Agree a cost efficient service, support and annual hosting agreement
- Design, develop, test and launch within three months
Our approach
In a process of evolution, rather than revolution, we initially worked closely with our primary contact at Whitbread on updating the sitemap and site structure, streamlining and consolidating where possible. We also engaged with their ESG team as the Sustainability section was given a complete overhaul with all new content, images, stats and infographics.
We initially created a series of high fidelity wireframes in order to agree on page layout and structure across the site. Light prototyping was applied to the wireframes through which we explored several approaches to the site navigation, settling on one that was the most user friendly and intuitive.
For the site design, we were tasked with taking the previous look and feel and updating and refining all elements with an emphasis on clean, clear, usable and future friendly. The other priority was to define the colour palette and typography, addressing the inconsistencies while also ensuring flexibility and usability.
The outcome
With the project beginning the first week of January 2021, we were on a tight deadline to launch the site three months later on April 1st, two weeks ahead of their previous provider switching off services.
The site was met with much acclaim internally and externally at Whitbread amongst its employees and stakeholders.
The testimonial below more than confirms the success of the project and we continue to grow our relationship and partnership with Whitbread in 2023.
Right from the start, the team at BrighterIR took the time to understand all aspects of our requirements
from budget, to process and strategic direction which enabled our relationship to evolve into a strong partnership very quickly. The team provided all the structure and guidance we needed to ensure we delivered the project on time and consistently guided us on best practice to optimise user experience of the site whilst always keeping in mind the strategic direction we had provided at the start of the project.
Aftercare and support was exceptional and meant we launched the site without any issues with positive feedback from internal and external
stakeholders.
