Sonova Global
 Website Relaunch

Case summary

Redesign and development of the Sonova AG global website. The task for Amazee Labs was the UX concept, design, and development of a platform that presents and positions the group as a holding for multiple market-leading brands in the sector of innovative hearing solutions and services.

Case description

Sonova, headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, is a leading provider of innovative hearing aids, cochlear implants, wireless communication products, digital solutions, and professional audiological care.
The global corporate website www.sonova.com has existed since 2012 and has since been maintained and improved by Amazee Labs. However, it could no longer meet the requirements of Sonova in terms of their communication needs, great user experience for multiple audiences and state-of-the-art technology. Sonova was also going through strategic changes that aimed to evolve from a manufacturer to an innovative, holistic solution provider with its own global store network that leverages digital capabilities to achieve high customer centricity and -satisfaction. Plus, a new corporate design has been developed for the printed media ecosystem, that was not sufficiently reflected on the web.  
Amazee Labs was asked to support Sonova with an ambitious redevelopment of the entire global website. The task was the concept, design, and development of a platform that presents and positions the group as the holding for multiple market-leading brands in the sector of innovative hearing solutions and services. 

Case goals and results

For the relaunch, the goal was to meet the requirements of users with diverse motivations such as shareholders, analysts, customers, potential employees, and the media, and to improve their overall experience. The website was also planned to become the central hub for all news and press releases, integrating media information from Sonova's hearing instruments and cochlear implant brands in one place. Also, Sonova’s vision to enable everyone to live a life without limitations should be reflected throughout the site with emotional feature stories.

Following a content-first UX strategy, the team developed a content strategy model that focussed on the user requirements, the brand message and overall strategic goals. The content strategy framework was then used by hub to develop new, relevant and engaging content.

Clear information architecture was developed to ensure intuitive access to all data and information on the website. The UX team designed wireframes of the most important pages and topic hubs to test and approve the user interface. In later stages, clickable prototypes have been used to visualize and test ideas. The visual design was created based on a new corporate design language, introducing a new and broader pallet of colour and typography. 

The website was developed in Drupal 8, using Amazee Labs’ advanced workflow model and content editing experience to meet Sonovas editor experience requirements.

After the successful relaunch, the first iteration of sonova.com was already very well received by all relevant target groups and internal stakeholders. The sonova.com website ranks on 3rd position in the „Webranking by Comprend 2019-2020“ for corporate websites in Switzerland.

Challenges

- Make business data and important reports public and convince investors, stakeholders and analysts of Sonova’s sustainable strategy.
- Communicate Sonova as a house of brands with its own identity and positioning including its own mission, vision, activities, and plans.
- Gather and channel the requirements of both internal and external user groups and stakeholders.
- Find ways to approach a professional talent acquisition.
- Set up an agile project management concept and workflow.
- Information architecture and accessibility concepts for a huge amount of complex information, that meet the requirements of different user groups and personas.
- Develop completely new, holistic user guidance and visual language to convey the identity and self-image of Sonova at the highest standards.
- Concept, implementation, and development based on a Drupal 8 content management framework.

Community contributions

The content management system makes use of a new concept in Drupal that is called “hierarchical workspaces”, that allows to share and override content across multiple endpoints. We helped to bring this feature into Drupal Core: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_51rAkhlvIo
It also employs a new solution for visual page building in Drupal that we developed and contributed.

Hosting

Hosted on Lagoon by amazee.io

Why should this case win the splash awards?

The project is all about offering a great user experience, following a user centric content-first approach. Website users of all types and with different requirements and demands for information, are able to quickly find relevant content with ease. At the same time, Sonova editors can benefit from the enhanced, visually assisted editor experience inside Drupal.

Case video