Combining forces with Forest Holidays’ team, we fixed a number of issues in a short time-frame leading to major improvements in the UX & UI, site performance and time to market.
Combining forces with Forest Holidays’ team, we fixed a number of issues in a short time-frame leading to major improvements in the UX & UI, site performance and time to market.
Forest Holidays is a lodging provider with multiple locations around UK’s forests. Visitors can find hand-picked content and forest guides as well as benefit from an interactive booking journey to find their perfect cabin. After our collaboration, Forest Holidays saw a:
increase in visitor conversions
increase in performance & scalability
dev hours saved every month
An outdated website customisable only by developers that wasn’t mobile-friendly and had a slow booking process.
A clean, modern & mobile-friendly web app with a highly-customisable booking journey and a smooth user experience.
We worked closely with Forest Holidays’ internal team to create detailed UX & UI mockups for all features and assist with implementing them.
Throughout, we followed a solution-oriented approach, tackling issues one by one in a quick manner.
To address the slow implementation of changes, we upgraded to a modern mono-repo architecture, moving the internal NPM to a NX. Although this change was challenging, the end-result introduced speedier development for engineers.
Having one depository instead of working on two fronts makes it easier to test and view local changes. Developers could now run projects locally as well as optimise code for specific browsers. At the end, a running example with NX was achieved in just 3 days.
We helped Forest Holidays launch a number of features, using a modern stack: React, Next.JS, NX, Typescript, Node & Redux. We also used GraphQL to power the data layer, giving us a lot of flexibility when it comes to retrieving and manipulating data. One of the benefits of this stack is the performance and stability it offers.
The new stack also allowed us to build a reusable component library. This means that we can easily create new pages and features quickly without having to start from scratch each time.
By improving pipeline and unit test speed, we were able to minimise frustration and long wait-times when developers had to commit new features. This improved team morale, speed and code quality. Together, the team was able to target all of the stale bugs and clean up the app.
Coming into the project, we had to improve existing screens to ensure they were consistent with the business goals and branding. Following the set of business requirements, we also created sketches for the new screens.
The sketches evolved to high-fidelity wireframes & mockups ready for user testing. With each iteration, we got closer to creating an intuitive and interactive user experience, without overwhelming visitors.
Bundle size was reduced by 50% which greatly improved page loading speed and boosted SEO rankings. This gives Forest Holidays a competitive edge and better reach.
A running project was achieved in just 3 days. This meant the internal dev team at Forest Holidays had more time to focus on implementing new features, reducing time to market.
Each developer saved around 30 minutes a day, resulting in 90 development hours saved per month for the company & boosting employee morale.
The integration of new headless CMS allowed the team to quickly change content on the site as well as launch and update campaigns, without having to consult developers.
In addition to improving site performance, users can now benefit from a new interactive booking process that is also flexible, simple but comprehensive, and easy to navigate.
The new and improved website was optimised for use on any screen, providing a seamless and consistent experience for all visitors. Navigation is easy, making it simple for users to find the information they need.
All Front is able to bring in more developers when we needed them. They were self-managed and high-quality individuals, so they're able to fit in with our project management approach quite happily.
