A website design concept for International Rail to increase the number of Travel Management Companies they work with.

The Challenge

International Rail came to us wanting a website that would help them to increase the number of Travel Management Companies (TMC’s) they worked with. Like any business, they have competitors, so the design concept needed to demonstrate their human approach. The goal was for International Rail to be the first point of contact for its customers.

The team at International Rail came to us with a new, refreshed brand and so it was important for us to integrate this in the new site, giving the concept a modern and vibrant feel.

The Process

With a defined problem to solve we kicked things off with a Discovery Workshop that involved all the key stakeholders, our designers and a developer. We began the workshop by defining as many problems and challenges that International Rail faced. Doing this helped us understand what needed to be solved in order to create a powerful solution. Don’t worry, we didn’t tackle all possible problems! We made sure to prioritise these and figure out which two were most important.

Problems We Prioritised

• TMC’s don’t know enough about rail to know what they could be missing. This could be made a lot easier for TMC’s and International Rail could be offering a lot more.
• “Nobody knows about us” – Getting International Rail’s name and brand out there is essential. We also need to make sure users know they are backed by STA Travel

Next up we needed to define the different types of users that would be coming to the website. We broke this down into three user types:

• Higher-Level Executive
• TMC Product Managers/Trade
• International Rail

Based on thorough discussions with the client and further user research we were able to create personas for each user type.

Design Process

Our design process always begins with some low fidelity wireframes. This allows us to explore quickly and freely without getting attached to ideas. Once we’re happy with the direction we’ll begin making these more polished in Figma.

This is an iterative process that will involve internal team reviews and client feedback before making this a polished, high fidelity design.

We’re passionate about creating consistent design systems for projects. Every project has a bespoke style guide that allows us to create reusable components following the 8pt grid. Not only does this approach create a strong design but it also makes the development a lot easier. Below you can see an insight into our style guide templates.

A comment was made in our Discovery Workshop implying that nobody knew who International Rail were. The launch of this new website needed to change this and show users not only who they are, but what they do and where. We created a Train Companies page as a way for International Rail to showcase all of the ticketing services they provide for and where across the world these services are available. Backing this up with testimonials from Travel Management Companies only demonstrates the companies scale and success.

With time poor users to cater for we’ve made sure that the content throughout the website is concise with clear headings for users to navigate and scan through. Creating pull sections on content-heavy pages also allows users to remember the highlights of International Rail’s services. We’ve also broken down the solutions into four concise packages for users to explore easily. These are accessible through the Solutions page and in the hero section on the home page. We’ve created an interactive carousel on the home page to display these solutions. Adding an element of interactivity to the site has given it more depth and makes a really strong feature on the home page. Positioning this alongside a strong client testimonial really helps show they are a human focused company.