Solving /

Opportunity

WW Grainger

WW Grainger is one of the largest facility supply and maintenance companies in the world. Their website is highly used by contractors of all types and sizes. Trope Collaborative was working on the redesign of grainger.com and identified a problem with product safety icons that were getting lost in all the page content. These icons have very specific meaning and important governmental compliance information, sustainability, product information and product functional information. The icons that had been developed over time were not done as a system.

Methods & Practices

We audited the existing icons and worked with a visual designer to harmonize the visual structure of the icons to make them look as part of a family of icons and that they were visually distinct from other page elements. We also met with legal counsel to review the icons and their content (which had not been done before) to make sure our recommendations would pass legal requirements. We identified a need to provide contractors with an overview of what icons meant at any point in the shopping process with proper roll-over states and important internal and external links for more information.

Impact & Outcome

The recommendations were implemented and the feedback from both contractors and WW Grainger support was very positive as it reduced the number of calls to support on product compliance issues.