The Smith Flow Control website

Smith Flow Control was another Halma company. It was a sister company to Netherlocks Safety Systems. The two companies have now merged and are now known as Sofis.

Smith Flow Control liked what I had done for Netherlocks as I was soon asked to update the Smith Flow Control website.

The previous website

Smith Flow Control’s website was reasonably well designed but in a style that wasn’t particularly modern. It was built for smaller monitors and was not responsive on new mobile devices.

The site was also text heavy so was not easily accessible and did not help a user to easily understand the main aspects of the business.

Design and build

I worked closely with Louise Cracknell, Smith Flow Control’s Marketing Director, to understand what they wanted to achieve with a new website and how the site should be structured.

Smith Flow Control already had an established colour scheme. They also had a brochure range. I took a lot of design cues from those.

It was decided to have two menus in the header. The top one would be the usual Home – About – News – Blog etc.

The main menu would then focus on what the company offered. The previous Products section was split into Process Safety and Valve Operation. This is not only clearer but is also better for search engine optimisation.

These links were also repeated on the Home page with feature boxes and text to briefly describe what Smith Flow Control did. This meant their business could easily be understood at a glance, without having to read a lot of text.

Reception

The website was well received. Halma’s Company Secretary, Carol Chesney, told me she loved the new Smith Flow Control website.