Sector(s)
Project Team
Project Manager: Stefanie Hetjens
Project Manager: Victor Künzig
Developer: Alex Tkachev
Developer: Blazej Owczarczyk
Developer:John Albin Wilkins
Developer: Daniel Lemon
Frontend Developer: Sascha Eggenberger
Developer: Vasi Chindris
Developer: Maria Comas
Frontend Developer, Developer: Kathryn McClintock
Developer: Marc Pfändler
Developer: Lucian Neag
Frontend Developer: Yacine Belarbi
Frontend Developer, Designer: Lisa Müller
Frontend Developer: Emma Karayiannis
Developer: Boris Baldinger
Amazee.IO: Michael Schmidt
Amazee.IO: Bastian Widmer
u‑blox is a global leader in wireless communications and positioning semiconductors and modules for the industrial, automotive and consumer markets. Over the last 20 years, the company has established a broad and diverse customer base that now extends to 65 countries and includes some 5 700 customers worldwide and u-blox now offers products and services from 25 branch offices worldwide.
About the project
In October 2014, we were approached by u-blox and asked us to assist them in implementing a new and improved online system which suited their current needs. The aim of the project was to create a modern web presence with an integrated product selector. To ensure the new website performs effectively on mobile devices, it had to be fully responsive in all areas.
In addition, the administrator interface lacked user-friendliness and needed to be replaced with a new, intuitive design for the back end. With the new back end, the u-blox web team can make their own changes to their online presence.
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal was chosen for the u-blox project because as an open source development tool it allows for the continuous development of any online product. Its modularity allows for a great level of flexibility for the editors - they can easily create and publish content, set certain user roles and specific permissions, choose who can access (view, edit or share) specific content and much more. Its flexibility and high scalability make it possible to share content in multiple languages across various devices.
In terms of features, operation, layout, and design, Drupal is highly customizable, which provides a great variety of choice to both developers and designers to address their clients’ requirements and specific needs. It's also easily extendable for an ever growing number of services u-blox provides. It made the integration into a lot of systems they use like Abacus, Autopilot, ExactTarget possible. The Drupal Parent Child System made the inheritance between products, and product families possible. So, child products only need to have specific information about them while all other information is inherited from their product family (parent).
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
A preliminary design study involved discussions at various workshops in defining the requirements of various stakeholders from the areas of marketing, product management, sales and support.
Particularly close attention was paid to product presentation, the biggest challenge of the project: using paper and working prototypes we collected feedback from users and internal stakeholders again and again until we found the right solution. All product data and complex product hierarchies and specifications were defined and structured. The end result is a product selector that can be viewed on all devices. To ensure optimal user friendliness, we carried out usability tests with potential users.
Migrate was used to migrate all existing content over to the new website. Search API makes the in-depth search functionality which includes searching of content and files as well as extensive filtering options for those types.
The Parent-Child-System facilitates the inheritance between products and corresponding product families. So, child products only need to have specific information about them while all other information is inherited from their product family (parent).
The u-blox website is available in several languages. For the translation process we implemented an interface with various translation agencies using XLIFF files and a Drupal translation management tool (TMGMT).
