Image Credit : Fab Ferrante
Project Overview
PGH Bricks & Pavers™, a subsidiary of CSR, is one of Australia’s largest clay brick manufacturers. PGH wanted to provide new home builders with a state-of-the-art tool to help them visualise and customise the bricks for their home. It had a basic Visualiser tool but it was clunky to use, not very realistic, and difficult for PGH to keep updated. More often than not, if customers wanted to see what their chosen bricks looked like on an actual house, they’d be sent away with a map. There was no guarantee they’d actually make it back to PGH. To solve this problem, Luminary built PGH a new Visualiser – a responsive web app that provides realistic real-time 3D rendering, supported by the option to use virtual reality for an even more immersive experience. The app is extremely easy for PGH to update with new brick products and house designs, giving the Visualiser the flexibility to be a critical sales tool as the brand’s product range changes and expands. The app is also built using cutting edge technology, putting PGH at the forefront of the market.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Account Manager: Adam Griffith
Producer: Matt Stobo
Front-end: Artur Kot, Aleksander Windak, Franky Cheung
Back-end: Mujtahid Abdullaq, Yoki Satria
QA: Abraham Yuwono
Project Brief
The brief was to create an online app that would allow home builders to visualise and customise the bricks for their new home. PGH’s requirements for the new Visualiser were that it:
- must be web-based
- must work on all devices
- must be content managed (the old Visualiser required a developer to change products and load images)
- must be future-ready (i.e. based on a technology that was new and developing, rather than something that was close to its limit), and
- must be capable of delivering ‘wow’ factor!
Project Need
PGH had a Visualiser tool but the user experience was not reflective of the high level of customer service that PGH upholds offline. The Visualiser required the assistance of a developer to upload content so it was difficult to maintain. As a result, it was out of date and provided new home builders with a only a very limited range of options in terms of house designs and brick products. The rendering was also very basic and did not provide a realistic impression of what the bricks would ultimately look like. Images were low-res and flat, and could not be customised or viewed from different angles.
This led to a situation where people would come into the Selection Centres to choose a shortlist of bricks and would then be sent off with a map to view houses built with their chosen products. This created a disconnect in the customer journey, which increased the likelihood that they would go elsewhere to purchase their bricks
User Experience
The Visualiser is a responsive, content-managed app, featuring high-quality WebGL rendering, easy social sharing capability and – the jewel in the crown – the option to view in fully immersive VR mode.
Unlike most existing customisation tools, the Visualiser is housed completely within the main site, so there’s no aesthetic or functional disconnect. The tool can be accessed from every product page, creating a frictionless customer journey.
The quality of the imagery – based on WebGL 3D rendering – is now far more realistic, giving users greater confidence in making their selection. And for those who want to have an even more realistic experience, the Visualiser tool is now supported by WebVR, an open specification that makes it possible to experience VR within a browser. With WebVR, the user can take an immersive 360-degree view of their house, simply by moving their head around.
Within the Visualiser, users can customise bricks, including style of brick, bond pattern and mortar colour, as well as customising other features such as roofs, guttering fascias, garage doors, pavers and feature walls. They can also instantly generate a PDF with product information, product availability, their location of their nearest Selection Centre, and a custom moodboard. The Visualiser is also integrated with Pinterest and Instagram, so users can share their custom designs.
In combination with PGH’s Selection Centres, the Visualiser has provided customers with a seamless connection between the online and offline experience.
Project Marketing
The Visualiser Tool is featured on every product page on the website and will also be used in-store as a tool for Selection Centre staff to leverage and help people understand their options. Once it has been operational for a certain period of time, the Visualiser Tool will also be promoted via organic and paid social media campaigns.
Project Privacy
Users of the Visualiser Tool are provided with a unique code and URL that can only be accessed by PGH staff and people with whom the customer shares their unique information. PGH only deals with customer data in ways that comply with the National Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act. More information on PGH’s privacy policy can be found here: https://www.pghbricks.com.au/security-and-privacy-statement
Digital - Home & Living
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