Harke — website redesign

Harke

website redesign

About project

2024

Harke Group is an international company with a strong presence in Europe and Asia, specializing in the distribution of chemical products, plastics, food additives and innovative solutions for over 30 industries. I undertook a complete redesign of their corporate website, focusing on updating the visual style and interface, without changing the basic structure. The project covered the homepage, product pages, category and subcategory pages, as well as the news section.

Project Goals

The goal is to transform an outdated website into a modern, visually appealing platform that emphasizes the company's professionalism and facilitates user interaction, namely:

create an intuitive and functional resource for a B2B audience (chemistry, logistics, procurement);
professionally and accessiblely present products with an emphasis on their key characteristics and value;
provide a clear structure for quick search among thousands of products;
integrate the corporate identity of Harke Group (#TheRightChemistry) to strengthen the brand.

From the UX/UI side: reduce cognitive load, increase retention rate, improve accessibility and mobile optimization.

Stages of work

Developed clickable wireframes for usability testing.
Proposed 4 menu header design options.
Developed design based on agreed wireframes.
Created AI images for product categories.
Created a set of icons for subcategories.
Developed a clickable prototype for testing.
Developed responsive design.
Created UI kit.
Prepared specifications for developers.

Problems of the

old design

and challenges of the redesign

The redesign was to be based on the existing architecture of the old site with thousands of products and a multi-level hierarchy, which limited the freedom of change and excluded expensive backend refactoring. The main tasks were: to update the massive gray header and menu for better usability and reduce the bounce rate; to redesign the main page to clearly communicate the company's strengths (experience, globality, certifications); to optimize the category and product pages, making them visually expressive and convenient (images, descriptions, CTAs), to ensure multilingualism and regional settings.

While working on the design for Harke Group, I proposed a concept with glass and a slight glassmorphism — as a symbol of the laboratory sphere and a way to add modernity to the brand. It was partly a departure from the corporate style, so after discussion we decided to keep the traditional identity, leaving the iconic hero image in the main section.