HEINEN & HOPMAN
Innovative website with headless CMS and CDN for efficient content management, security and unprecedented speed.
With in-depth knowledge of climate control in the maritime sector, Heinen & Hopman devises innovative systems and solutions. Their goal? To provide the best HVAC services in the world. And that includes having a robust website. With over 700 pages, Heinen & Hopman’s website serves as a crucial content database for both employees and clients. But then it really should function optimally…
EFFICIENT
CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
“Because we have an enormous amount of content on our website, we were hesitant to build a new one,” says Marloes, Senior Marketing & Communication Specialist at Heinen & Hopman. “But it was sorely needed. The website was difficult to manage, the CMS was outdated, and the sheer volume of content made the site slow and, at times, even inaccessible. There was no overview of the published brochures and manuals, both on the front and back ends. To change this, I contacted UBO.”
Clear project scope and precise milestones thanks to Scrum
Due to the extensive content database, Heinen & Hopman’s website is much more than just a digital business card. To maintain optimal control over the desired result, we applied the Scrum methodology. “This ensures that you continually assess whether the developments and functionalities align with the objectives,” explains Dylan, Full Stack Developer at UBO. “What are the priorities? How do we deal with challenges? And when are our deadlines for the different elements? This works well for us. But it also works for Marloes. With short sprints, you can quickly make decisions together.”
“Thanks to the clear deliverables and precise milestones, I could provide feedback promptly and keep a close eye on the objectives,” confirms Marloes. “This made it a very flexible project.”
Innovative tech stack tackles challenges
“In sprint 0, we began with an analysis of the old website,” Dylan continues. “Then we delved into the functional design. Here, we detailed the functionalities the website should have and the technologies we would use. The challenges Marloes brought to us were continuously the focal point. For example, we opted for an innovative headless CMS combined with a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This separated the front and back ends. The significant advantage of this approach is that Heinen & Hopman’s new website is exceptionally fast, despite the substantial amount of content. It is also secure with a good findability.”
When building a website, Team UBO takes into account…
- User-friendliness
- Security
- Speed
- Accessibility
- Manageability
“UBO comprehends what we want. Not unimportant: UBO uses the newest technologies and works with the future in their hindsight mirror.”
Challenges
- 700 pages of content
- Outdated CMS
- Poor manageability
- Lack of flexibility
- Slowness
- Outdated security
Solutions
- Effective project approach based on Scrum
- Tech stack tailored to address challenges
- Separation of front-end and back-end with a headless CMS
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
OPTIMAL USER EXPERIENCE
In addition to the technology, user-friendliness naturally plays a crucial role in the design. Hillany, UX & Web Designer at UBO, explains: “To ensure that, I designed various wireframes. These are like blueprints for the website. The result functions as a prototype. How can we optimize the user experience? So that users can quickly and easily find the right content? With this as a starting point, I determined the website’s structure. It should work in a way that aligns with the visitor’s expectations. In this phase, Marloes and I also identified which content needed to be migrated and mapped out (hidden) duplicate pages.”
heinenhopman.com: from website to web application
Like Heinen & Hopman, UBO is constantly engaged in innovation. We are very proud of the result of this challenging project! “The backend is built in WordPress to improve user-friendliness and manageability,” Dylan concludes. “Now, Marloes can easily make changes to the website herself and has control over the vast amount of content. The front-end is built in ReactJS to ensure high speed, security, and accessibility for visitors. In addition, SEO was a crucial part of the migration. To prevent old content from no longer being found on Google, we implemented redirects. The result is that heinenhopman.com is now much more than a website. It has truly become a portal for company and product information. It exudes the professionalism befitting a global player like Heinen & Hopman.”
“A website build as an application.”
Heinen & Hopman leads the way by…
“A blazingly fast website with the newest techniques.” – Dylan
UBO leads the way by…
“Evolving constantly. They follow the latest trends and developments and implement the newest techniques.” – Marloes