Contemporary DB website for a major freight line

The Emmerich-Oberhausen track is an important line for European freight traffic. With both increasing freight and passenger traffic, it had reached its limits and extensive structural changes were necessary. Basilicom created a website that enables DB Netz AG to provide up-to-date communications support on the construction progress.

The Customer

As the rail infrastructure company of Deutsche Bahn AG, DB Netz AG is responsible for a network of around 33,300 kilometers of track, making it Europe's largest rail network operator. Through service and maintenance, the company's most important task is to ensure the basis for safe and reliable rail operations.

46000 Employees
5.937 billion EUR in annual sales in 2019
33000 km route network

Projectdescription

Challenge

Outdated page content and nested information architecture

The existing DB website for the Emmerich-Oberhausen expansion line was characterized by a great deal of outdated information that was no longer relevant. Page content was sometimes duplicated, and website visitors were virtually overwhelmed by the uncoordinated wealth of information. In addition, the site’s operating concept was deeply nested in some areas, which made orientation and navigation difficult. For the new website, the first thing to do was to fundamentally revise the information architecture. With a focus on relevant and up-to-date content, visitors needed to be able to find the desired page content quickly and easily through smart navigation. In addition, the new site was to be redesigned with a modern, contemporary look in line with Deutsche Bahn's corporate design guidelines.

Solution

Relaunch in agile "construction phases" using Atomic Design

Basilicom built the new website using the agile Scrum framework. Together with DB Netz AG, we first developed a requirements catalog, on the basis of which we used an Atomic Design approach to develop an initial layout and a concept for the new information architecture. Valuable insights from feedback on already developed increments flowed into a project backlog, which we enriched with user stories in the course of further development. Our use of the Atomic Design standard positively impacted a consistent look and feel as well as the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of the website. And by implementing a Pimcore CMS, the website also offers the greatest possible flexibility in terms of the look, feel, and usability of the CMS templates and modules.

Result

A lean website in DB’s aesthetic, with an intuitive CMS and persuasive usability

With the relaunch of the website for the expansion of the Emmerich-Oberhausen line, Basilicom created an informative platform in just six weeks that guides interested parties through the information with clean user navigation and a clear focus on relevant content. In addition, the new website is impressive thanks to a fresh, modern look in Deutsche Bahn’s corporate design, including an optimal responsive display. The Pimcore-based CMS enables editors to easily maintain website content intuitively and with minimal effort. With our WYSIWYG approach, we also transported the look of the website into the CMS, thereby immediately providing an extensive library of flexible page templates and modules for any further expansion of the site.