BACKGROUND
Headquartered in Cary, NC, Railinc is the railroad industry’s most innovative and reliable resource for IT and information services, providing business intelligence that helps railroads and rail equipment owners increase productivity and keep their assets moving. Since 2011, Signal has been given the opportunity to design the company’s annual reports, with the objective of creating visually stimulating looks and richly textured covers that reflect Railinc’s pioneering leadership.
For the 2017 and 2018 annual reports, the client chose to issue the report online, with no printed edition. Their vision was to offer a more engaging user experience that would reflect the technology component of Railinc’s core service to the rail industry.
SIGNAL SOLUTION
It was critical to balance form and function for the report, drawing viewers in with interactive and visual stimuli while still maintaining the substance of the information presented. The Signal team met this challenge by focusing on the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) to make sure the content was supported with an intuitive and enjoyable experience.
- First, our team created an outline of content and brainstormed ideas for high-level design concepts and interactive features.
- After receiving client buy-in, Signal developed high-fidelity wireframes in Sketch and used InVision for collaborative feedback.
- Signal developed the entire annual report as a responsive microsite and deployed to a staging server for review by all stakeholders.
- Signal worked with the IT team at Railinc to ensure a seamless deployment to their production web servers.
RESULTS
Railinc’s 2017 interactive annual report launched on time and on budget. A non-printed annual report was uncharted territory for the client’s Corporate Communications team, but they were delighted with the outcome and the experience of collaborating so closely with our team throughout the process. Building on this success, Signal applied the same structure to the 2018 annual report, adding fresh visuals, copy and interactive content.
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