Materna is developing a user experience concept for the VCI’s website relaunch

The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has given its website a comprehensive revamp. For several weeks now, www.vci.de has featured significantly improved user navigation, excellent mobile accessibility and a visually appealing design. The IT company Materna Information & Communications SE supported the relaunch, developed the user experience concept and implemented it in both the front-end and back-end.

The VCI represents the interests of around 1,700 chemical companies in Germany in dealings with politicians, public authorities, other sectors of the economy and the media. The VCI accounts for more than 90 per cent of the German chemical industry. A modern and intuitive website serves as the association’s calling card. As a key communication tool, the website provides information to association members as well as other target groups from the industry and the political sphere. VCI members, in particular, find support here for their wide-ranging concerns.

A user and usability analysis of the VCI’s website had revealed that the site needed a revamp. Overall, usability needed to be improved and the site needed to be more closely aligned with users’ needs.

The VCI initially commissioned Materna to develop a user experience concept for the website, which was to serve as a guide for the subsequent stages of the relaunch. The concept developed conveys the attributes of reliability, trust, credibility, innovation, flexibility and dynamism.

Materna implemented the user experience concept across several work packages, including the information architecture, as well as the concept and design. The user experience concept includes, amongst other things, 70 new page, paragraph, formatting and link templates for desktop, tablet and smartphone views. Materna then adapted the existing website to the new user experience concept, thereby technically implementing the front-end relaunch. This involved the development and implementation of a functional prototype of the design, which renders the design for all templates across all views (desktop, tablet, smartphone) using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Technologically, the VCI’s website is based on the FirstSpirit content management system. A relaunch of the technical infrastructure is also planned as the next step.

“As the VCI had simultaneously adopted a new corporate design, we wanted to switch to the new look and feel online as quickly as possible. We managed to achieve this in the implementation project in just under six months, together with Materna. Today, we are presenting our website visitors with a fantastic and fresh online presence,” says Jenni Glaser, Head of Political Communication at the VCI.

About Materna

The Materna Group delivers sustainable IT and digitalisation projects for clients from large corporations, SMEs and public authorities. With more than 2,600 employees worldwide, Materna generated a turnover of 355.1 million euros (2020). Its expertise and capabilities are organised across nine focus areas. Materna has held a market-leading position in the focus areas of Digital Administration, Enterprise Service Management and Passenger Journey for many years. Through its focus areas of SAP Transformation, Journey2Cloud™ and Cyber Security, Materna offers solutions to the most pressing challenges currently facing almost all sectors. In the focus areas of Digital Experience, Sustainability & Resilience, and Data Economy, Materna provides solutions that enable clients to position themselves for the long term in a sustainable and value-generating manner.