Case Study
D3VL
How We Built Our Website.
The Goal.
When it came to redesigning the D3VL website, our main goal was to improve the user experience and increase the overall speed of the site. The previous WordPress site had been put together quickly and was not performing as well as we had hoped. We wanted to create a website that was visually appealing, easy to navigate, and that loaded quickly for our users.
We also wanted to ensure that the new website accurately reflected the values and services of D3VL. It was important to us that the website effectively communicated who we are as a company and what we can offer to our clients. By redesigning the website, we aimed to establish a strong online presence and better showcase the full range of services we provide. Overall, our goal was to create a website that was not only visually appealing, but also functional and user-friendly for all of our visitors.
What We Did
- Web Development
- UI/UX Design
- SEO
- Infrastucture
- CI/CD Pipelines
Technology Stack
- Bootstrap 5
- Gatsby
- React
- GraphQL
- Cloudflare Pages
Interactivity
We added the globe to the homepage of the D3VL website for a few reasons. Firstly, we wanted to create a visually striking and interactive element that would grab the attention of users as soon as they landed on the site. By using three.js and Globe.GL to build the globe, we were able to create a dynamic and engaging element that would stand out on the page.
In addition to adding an element of visual appeal, we also wanted to use the globe to communicate some of the values and goals of our company. By showing users from around the globe using our services within the past 24 hours, we wanted to communicate that we work globally and are able to serve a wide range of clients. The globe ties in with our tagline of "Software that rocks", as it's basically a big rock! It also serves as a visual representation of the idea that we're all connected and working together on the same planet.
Overall, the globe serves as an effective way to both engage users and communicate the values and goals of our company. It adds an interactive and visually appealing element to the homepage, while also helping to convey our message of global connectivity and collaborative problem-solving.
Design
The aesthetics of a website are just as important as its functionality. That's why we chose to go with a futuristic cyberpunk theme for our new website design. With its sharp, angular elements and bold use of our brand color #ff3e3e, we feel that this theme perfectly reflects the cutting-edge nature of the software solutions we offer. But it's not just about looking good - the cyberpunk theme also helps to set the tone for our brand. It conveys a sense of innovation and forward-thinking, which is exactly what we want our customers to associate with D3VL.
In addition to the visual elements, we also incorporated micro interactions throughout the site to add an extra layer of polish and user engagement. These subtle animations help to bring the website to life and make the overall user experience more enjoyable. The futuristic cyberpunk theme and micro interactions help to create a unique and memorable online presence for D3VL, one that accurately reflects our brand identity and the innovative solutions we offer.
Copywrite
One of the key challenges we faced when developing the new D3VL website was creating engaging and informative content that accurately reflected our brand and services. As software developers, we wanted to focus on what we do best and leave the writing to the experts. That's where AI came in.
Using advanced natural language processing techniques, we were able to leverage the power of AI to generate high-quality content for the website. This not only allowed us to save time and resources, but also ensured that the content on our website was of the highest quality and accurately reflected our brand and values.
Of course, we still had a human touch in the content creation process. We carefully reviewed and edited the AI-generated content to ensure it met our standards and accurately conveyed our message. In the end, the combination of AI and human expertise resulted in a website that effectively communicates our services and brand to our audience.
Human Note
Yes, the AI even wrote this case study! Using cutting-edge technology to craft our own website's content demonstrates our commitment to staying at the forefront of the industry and utilizing the latest tools and techniques to deliver the best results for our clients.
No AI was harmed in the making of this website.
Tech
We chose to use Gatsby as the framework for our new website, It allowed us to build a website that is both lightning fast (we hope you noticed!) and incredibly optimised, Gatsby is a static site generator that pre-builds all of the pages on the website, that means when a user visits the site, they are sent a pre-built page in sub ms time rather than waiting for a server to build the page on the fly. This results in incredibly fast load times, which not only improves the user experience, but also helps improve our search engine optimization.
When picking where to host the static files it was a no-brainer on picking Cloudflare Pages. Cloudflare is a content delivery network (CDN) that has a global network of servers in densely populated and remote locations. When a user visits our website hosted on Cloudflare, they are automatically served the copy of the website from the server that is closest to them. This delivers the website ready to use in under 50ms anywhere on the globe.
To ensure rapid deployment of updates to the website, we implemented a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. This means that every time we push updates to the code on GitHub, the changes are automatically built and deployed to the live website on Cloudflare. This allows us to quickly and easily make updates to the website without the need for manual deployment that wastes time and increases the risk of errors.
Results
The new D3VL website is a vast improvement over the old site in terms of speed and functionality. One of the key changes we made was replacing the old, bloated installation of WordPress with a globally distributed static website. This change alone has colossally improved the speed and performance of the site.
In addition to the improved performance of the site, we also made sure to include a variety of features and functionalities that were not present on the old site. These include a more intuitive and user-friendly design, a streamlined navigation system, and a variety of interactive elements that help to engage and educate our visitors.
Overall, the new D3VL website is a testament to the power of modern technology and our ability to use it to create truly innovative and effective solutions.