Increased usability through global versioning and a more intuitive user interface
Labor savings due to lower launch and consulting costs
More flexible use through browser-based development
Founded in 1911 as a sawmill, the family business has developed into an ecologically active manufacturer of timber building materials for the construction and insulation of timber and passive houses, single-family homes and multi-storey timber buildings. Thanks to regional timber, short transport routes and innovative production processes, all products are manufactured in a closed operating and raw material cycle. The company's more than 4,000 customers include carpenters, timber construction companies and prefabricated house manufacturers.
Source: best wood SCHNEIDER®
Source: best wood SCHNEIDER®
As a manufacturer of timber construction elements, best wood SCHNEIDER GmbH not only supports its customers in the production and selection of the right products, but also offers engineering services. An important part of these services is the free structural analysis software best wood STATICS, which allows structural engineers and architects to calculate and display the structural analysis of SCHNEIDER products.
When project manager Manuel Stuhlinger was asked to extend STATICS on a large scale, he had an idea. As an account manager, he was all too familiar with the pitfalls of the desktop application:
Stuhlinger's thought: If you have to touch the software anyway, why not turn the desktop app into a web app right away? The advantages are obvious: New versions can be implemented on-the-fly and the app is browser-based — i.e. on any operating system and device.
The only problem was that the previous developer of the STATICS software could not develop for the web. And a standardised web solution was out of the question: "As we offer not only standardised products, but also completely individual timber components, our requirements could not be met with standardised software solutions," recalls Stuhlinger. In his search for a development partner, he finally came across us. And it all began shortly after our first meeting.
But the first challenges were not long in coming. As the application had been in use for years and countless versions had been released, the code grew with it. As a result, there were a considerable number of dependencies that were hard to understand and, of course, undocumented. The user interface of the solution had also become outdated. Less experienced users, in particular, needed initial user support to find their way around. It just wasn't intuitive enough for a web solution.
Regardless of operating system and device: best wood STATICS as a browser-based web app.
Due to the many dependencies in the inventory code, STATICS had to be completely redesigned as a web application. To do this, our developers worked in an agile team with the original developer - who, as a structural engineer, also brought the necessary domain knowledge.
The big advantage of this was that we were able to rebuild STATICS from the ground up as a sustainable clean code application. "I'm not a programmer - so I can't judge the quality of the code. But: For me as a customer, Clean Code simply gives me the security of being independent. I don't want to be left with a piece of code that no one understands in 10 years' time and have to start from scratch," says project manager Manuel Stuhlinger.
Up to now, new versions have meant one thing in particular for Manuel Stuhlinger: extra work. First, he had to write information about what had changed and why. These had to be sent to customers in the form of newsletters, including a download link. In the end, many customers called anyway - mainly because they hadn't updated and their version was giving incorrect results. Thanks to the web application, software updates can now be imported live and all customers are on the same, up-to-date version - without having to download it.
The user interface redesign wasn't just about updating the look, standardising fields and adjusting colours. It was also about transforming a desktop application into a web application. In addition to a new navigation system, the user flow was also redesigned to make the user experience not only web-enabled, but also more intuitive. "The advantage was simply that generic.de provided us with software development and UX/UI design from a single source - and not just from one person, but from various experts in the disciplines," recalls Manuel Stuhlinger.
The best wood STATICS user interface in a before-and-after comparison
In addition to adding new features to the existing modules, a completely new module is also planned. In addition to roofs and ceilings, Schneider walls can therefore soon also be statically calculated with bestwood STATICS. We are already developing the new module for the app.
The move to the web offers yet another opportunity that Schneider has not yet been able to seize with the desktop app: analyzing how STATICS is being used. With Google Analytics, the company wants to measure usability metrics in the future and thus make deductions regarding user experience and user interface.