Rail.CC
Concept and redesign of the portal
for searching and buying train tickets
throughout Europe
for searching and buying train tickets
throughout Europe
What is Rail.CC
Rail.CC is a German-based website that combines the search for cheap rail tickets and passes, blogs of rail travelers, and a forum for rail travel enthusiasts.
Each part of the site is equally crucial for stakeholders. More than half of the site's users are active users of the forum, so stakeholders primarily care about convenience for the community.
Each part of the site is equally crucial for stakeholders. More than half of the site's users are active users of the forum, so stakeholders primarily care about convenience for the community.
Redesign Goals
We work hard every day to make life of our clients better and happier
- Unified Visual LanguageDifferent parts of the site were created in different years and by different teams, so the sections had completely different visual languages
- Selling PagesThe source of income for the project is the sale of railway tickets and passes. Therefore, one of the key tasks was to create sales pages for the main commercial products.
- Deepen User InteractionBy the time of the redesign, users who came from search engines did not delve into the site. The goal was to attract users to the Blogs and Forums sections in order to deepen interaction and encourage users to come back
Architectur
Forum
The main task in the redesign of the forum was to maintain its convenience for old users. By changing the visual of the sections, I tried not to lose the original architecture, so as not to increase the cognitive load on loyal forum users
Marketing
Ticket search pages and pass descriptions, on the contrary, were created almost from scratch. People come here from search queries. Therefore, I decided to create a separate landing page for each offer in order to motivate the purchase as much as possible.
Blogs
Stakeholders wanted to make the blog section another strong entry point from search engines, so in its design I used all the principles of Internet media design to make reading more comfortable.
Adaptive layout
Rail is a service for travelers. The site should provide quick access to information not only from a computer but also from a phone or tablet. Therefore, an important task was to make the site fully adaptive and make interaction with it convenient for devices using a touchscreen.
To ensure a comfortable transition, I developed different layouts for four screen resolutions: big desktop, small desktop, tablet, and mobile. I created rules for how blocks are resized, a description of element stretching, and set transition points for different versions of the design.
To ensure a comfortable transition, I developed different layouts for four screen resolutions: big desktop, small desktop, tablet, and mobile. I created rules for how blocks are resized, a description of element stretching, and set transition points for different versions of the design.
Forum
Another task was to create a consistent design for the forum. Before the forum was developed spontaneously and was created from ready-to-use components. I created a component system that covered the functions and made it clear to develop further, even if new functions were created without a designer.
The stakeholder's wish was to solve was to emphasize the multilingual nature of the forum. After the discussions, we came up with the idea of tagging posts on the forum by their language and creating a tool for viewing messages only in selected languages.
The stakeholder's wish was to solve was to emphasize the multilingual nature of the forum. After the discussions, we came up with the idea of tagging posts on the forum by their language and creating a tool for viewing messages only in selected languages.
Implementation
Unfortunately, the pandemic significantly affected the travelling industry and the plans of the company, so only the core marketing pages have been implemented
Links to the implemented pages
