The digital PR portal for Douglas. UX design and web development.

The aim of the new Douglas press portal is to be the central point of contact for journalists. In one digital place, with just a few clicks, Douglas's entire product world is presented and made accessible to journalists. Complemented by probably the largest European beauty product database, journalists receive the most comprehensive range of information to be able to write specialist articles accurately and engagingly. A search and filters help to find all the necessary information as quickly as possible.

Expert voices and contacts from various specialist areas complement the offering, giving journalists a complete insight into the world of Douglas.

For the novel platform solution, we use a modern framework as a starting point and modify it accordingly to develop a system perfectly tailored to Douglas. In several workshops with all contacts on the client side, we work out the requirements and define interim goals.

In the first concept phases, design studies and wireframes are created so that different approaches can be tested. We devote a lot of attention to user guidance in order to keep the click paths to their information as short as possible for the target persons, i.e. journalists. As a first interim result, a detailed information architecture of the new portal and a first prototype are produced.

To find one's way around a world of thousands of products from hundreds of brands, we need a simple and intuitive navigation. To make the product catalogue easy to grasp, we opt for a very reduced UI design that draws on familiar software solutions. In this way, we succeed in guiding users confidently through the diverse product world. The navigation menu offers a clear overview of the individual brands, news about Douglas, the experts and a comprehensive »Library« with all information on brands and products.

The heart of the Douglas portal is the library with its various filter options. Various file formats can be stored in it and then made available to journalists. When searching for specific media such as photos, videos or texts, they can use various functions to reach their search goal quickly and then simply download the relevant data.

On the individual detail pages for brands and products, users have access to all media associated with a product. From official image material and press texts to individual ingredient details. Via tags entered into the system in advance by Douglas editors, even related, similar products can be found quickly.

With the new portal, Douglas enables all accredited journalists to significantly increase their productivity and contributes to improving the quality of the content of press work. With its first version, the Douglas Daily Portal already offers a comprehensive range of functions. At the same time, there are many more functions that are to be developed in future as expansion stages. This creates a living digital product that improves daily work for Douglas and the journalists.

Thanks to its huge network, Douglas can draw on numerous experts for its journalists' specialist questions. To simplify contact between them, we have created a dedicated area in the portal. This allows you to get in touch directly or find out about each individual expert beforehand. Thanks to a podcast integration, even audio contributions can be accessed.

The clearly structured interface of the portal is based on a design system created for this purpose. This is a kind of design toolkit of individual icons, buttons and text fields, orchestrated by a set of rules. These rules help us as the portal evolves, to ensure a consistent look and to make the interface comprehensible and easy to use for users.

The Douglas Daily Portal is not based on an existing CMS. For the portal, a custom solution is developed in close coordination with Douglas, based on an extensive framework, which makes maintaining the portal as simple as it is intuitive. All content elements – whether text-image containers, entire product galleries or media such as podcasts integrated via the Spotify API – can be combined effortlessly by drag and drop. A very simple site builder enables the Douglas portal editors to build content pages with ease.