A quick update: since we completed and launched the website, Aro has successfully been acquired and the website absorbed into the parent company. You can still check out our work and designs in the case study here.
The client
Aro, formerly Freedom Finance, is a credit broker that operates the largest lending marketplace in the UK.
They empower customers through transparent data-driven insights, and want to reduce frustration by matching people with the loans and credit cards that are right for them.Â
The project
Aro were in the process of rebranding from Freedom Finance when they came to us. We’d previously worked with one of their team and so when a redevelopment project came about that required great user experience design and an easy-to-use content management approach, they reached out to work with us.
The brief from the Aro marketing team was to reskin their existing WordPress website to make it look like their new, dynamic, user-focused brand.
This needed to be done on a tight, strict deadline, to coordinate with the launch of their platform across their marketing channels.
So we got to work planning, designing and developing their refreshed website.
Delivering the new Aro website
The most important part of this project was making sure we maintained the existing systems that Aro were familiar with.
They needed to be able to use the site in the way they had before, and create content-rich pages without learning an entirely new system. But, there was one key challenge:Â together we recognised that the existing system was broken.
Our research into the site showed there were faults that needed to be fixed. Some of these were identified by the marketing team in the ways that content was being managed, whereas others were raised through our initial auditing of the site. These issues would need to be addressed for the site to function and scale properly.
Addressing this whilst keeping to an existing deadline is a challenge, but it’s not new to us! Taking over a lot of existing websites to help them grow and build their resilience, we knew exactly the approach to take:
- Clear communication around fixes
- Debugging broken elements
- Re-educating on WordPress best practices
We were also faced with an entirely new way of building pages called Atomic Design. The tendency for agencies is to try and do things “their way” and rebuild a system from scratch. But, frustration-free is one of our core tenets, and we chose to lean into the challenge and pioneer new solutions to existing problems. And, this approach was game-changing for us.
Using WordPress and content blocks
“The most exciting part of this project,” says Ian Brown, our Head of Development, “was coming across the Atomic Design Method”. This was a whole new method of building pages, based on more simplified elements. Atoms (small elements), Blocks, (where those elements live), and Containers, (how to blocks are presented on page).
This has made creating pages that marketing and development teams can tweak after they’ve taken control of their site, to build pages and create brand-standard content, much easier. There are fewer elements than can “break”, but there’s more flexibility to build pages your way.
“We’re currently pioneering this on other client projects,” Ian continues, “and we’re seeing great results.”