Development of a corporate website for the Russian Railways enterprise
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:01 am
Today we will tell you about the creation of a website for a subsidiary of Russian Railways. Using this case as an example, you can analyze many difficult moments of website building.
We have developed this corporate website according to two principles that we consider mandatory for web resources of organizations of this level. Let's look at them in more detail.
Restrained, conservative style
Our Client's parent company is the largest employer in Russia, one of the most significant transport corporations in the world. Every hundredth working resident of our country works for Russian Railways or its subsidiary. This imposed a number of obligations on us when developing this corporate website .
Firstly, the website had to be designed in a restrained conservative style. It had to withstand a long chain of approvals. Web resources in such companies must satisfy a number of heads of different departments. After all, any state company is a complex system of many departments, the management of each of which has its own interests. Therefore, we had to act for sure, avoiding overly creative solutions that could be misunderstood by someone from the group of decision-makers. Yes, precisely “groups of people”, and not just decision-makers, as in small businesses.
Secondly, the corporate website had to be made “for the long haul”, so that it would look modern for a long period of time after its creation. State corporations have a hard time modernizing due to their cumbersome structure, i.e. they will not decide to develop a new website anytime soon. This meant that it would not be right to get carried away with some of the most fashionable trends in web design – the website would become outdated before it was redesigned.
The Customer did not voice the second requirement to us, his representatives turned out to be pleasant people, open to cooperation. We set this requirement for ourselves. It is just that for us, as an agency working for the long term, the future of our work is important.
In the design of the site we used red, black, white and metallic colors. They corresponded to the corporate style of Russian Railways, which is expressed on many other media, even the uniform of the employees of this organization. Thanks to the unity of style, even a conservative and simple design looks solid and even elegant. Let's take, for example, an extremely simple in its structure page, which describes the biography of the company's CEO. It is easy to notice that the photo fits very harmoniously into the design of the site due to the presence of the same corporate colors in it.
However, conservatism and simplicity do not exclude modernity and maximum functionality. Let's take, for example, a page with a land plot. (A small explanation - the Customer's company has a large number of land plots and premises that it rents out.
This page also does not have a single unnecessary element, only the fundamentally important information is provided, there is absolutely no embellishment. But a potential tenant can get an whatsapp number australia idea of the land plot or premises he is interested in in a few seconds thanks to:
compactly placed and accessible for enlargement photographs;
indicating the location of the object on the map;
neatly presented documentation, etc.
The site uses an Alpha SLL security certificate with 256-bit encryption.
By the way, you can still hear the opinion that for sites that do not offer online transactions, the presence of a security certificate is not necessary. We believe that this is a very unjustified saving in the development and technical support of a web resource. Several thousand rubles a year is a negligible amount of money for a serious business, SLL pays it back with interest. And it is not even about the notorious green lock in the browser line that strengthens trust and the "goodies" promised by search engines. It is rather about the inscription "not protected", which is present without a certificate, casting a slight shadow even on a site with the most modern design.
By taking such nuances into account, the corporate website looks representative, corresponding to the status of the organization. The result is an Internet platform that can be used as a platform for reporting to the public, informing press services, and attracting job seekers.
We have developed this corporate website according to two principles that we consider mandatory for web resources of organizations of this level. Let's look at them in more detail.
Restrained, conservative style
Our Client's parent company is the largest employer in Russia, one of the most significant transport corporations in the world. Every hundredth working resident of our country works for Russian Railways or its subsidiary. This imposed a number of obligations on us when developing this corporate website .
Firstly, the website had to be designed in a restrained conservative style. It had to withstand a long chain of approvals. Web resources in such companies must satisfy a number of heads of different departments. After all, any state company is a complex system of many departments, the management of each of which has its own interests. Therefore, we had to act for sure, avoiding overly creative solutions that could be misunderstood by someone from the group of decision-makers. Yes, precisely “groups of people”, and not just decision-makers, as in small businesses.
Secondly, the corporate website had to be made “for the long haul”, so that it would look modern for a long period of time after its creation. State corporations have a hard time modernizing due to their cumbersome structure, i.e. they will not decide to develop a new website anytime soon. This meant that it would not be right to get carried away with some of the most fashionable trends in web design – the website would become outdated before it was redesigned.
The Customer did not voice the second requirement to us, his representatives turned out to be pleasant people, open to cooperation. We set this requirement for ourselves. It is just that for us, as an agency working for the long term, the future of our work is important.
In the design of the site we used red, black, white and metallic colors. They corresponded to the corporate style of Russian Railways, which is expressed on many other media, even the uniform of the employees of this organization. Thanks to the unity of style, even a conservative and simple design looks solid and even elegant. Let's take, for example, an extremely simple in its structure page, which describes the biography of the company's CEO. It is easy to notice that the photo fits very harmoniously into the design of the site due to the presence of the same corporate colors in it.
However, conservatism and simplicity do not exclude modernity and maximum functionality. Let's take, for example, a page with a land plot. (A small explanation - the Customer's company has a large number of land plots and premises that it rents out.
This page also does not have a single unnecessary element, only the fundamentally important information is provided, there is absolutely no embellishment. But a potential tenant can get an whatsapp number australia idea of the land plot or premises he is interested in in a few seconds thanks to:
compactly placed and accessible for enlargement photographs;
indicating the location of the object on the map;
neatly presented documentation, etc.
The site uses an Alpha SLL security certificate with 256-bit encryption.
By the way, you can still hear the opinion that for sites that do not offer online transactions, the presence of a security certificate is not necessary. We believe that this is a very unjustified saving in the development and technical support of a web resource. Several thousand rubles a year is a negligible amount of money for a serious business, SLL pays it back with interest. And it is not even about the notorious green lock in the browser line that strengthens trust and the "goodies" promised by search engines. It is rather about the inscription "not protected", which is present without a certificate, casting a slight shadow even on a site with the most modern design.
By taking such nuances into account, the corporate website looks representative, corresponding to the status of the organization. The result is an Internet platform that can be used as a platform for reporting to the public, informing press services, and attracting job seekers.