Carolyn Ho 👋
A Web Designer 🖥️ having 4 years of Experiences. Focused on executing intuitive designs with precision to detail.
Client For:
DP Tile & Stone
Overview
DP Tile is a local tile company based in Vancouver, specializing in high-quality tiles for residential and commercial projects. The company required a modern, visually appealing website that could showcase their tile collections and recent projects while allowing easy content management by their internal team. The website was designed and developed using Gatsby and Contentful. Gatsby provided a fast and SEO-friendly static site framework, while Contentful served as a flexible headless CMS, enabling the client to easily update new products, tile collections, and featured projects without developer involvement.
Challenges
1. Product Hierarchy and User Navigation
- Challenge: DP Tile offers a wide range of tile series, each containing multiple sizes, finishes, and color variations. The initial design made it difficult for users—especially interior designers—to quickly understand the structure and locate the exact product they needed.
- Solution: Through two iterations of discussion and prototyping with the project manager, I refined the product hierarchy and navigation structure. The final layout emphasized a clear multi-level categorization, enabling users to filter and browse by collection, material, size, and color. This improved both usability and discoverability of products.
Instagram Feed API Maintenance
- Challenge: During development, the homepage’s Instagram feed component encountered issues due to an expired access token. The original short-term API required manual refresh every two months, leading to inconsistent content display.
- Solution: I researched and implemented a long-term Instagram API token solution, securely stored on the backend to prevent exposure on the client side. This eliminated downtime and ensured continuous synchronization between the website and DP Tile’s social media updates.
Conclusion:
The new DP Tile website successfully delivered a fast, elegant, and scalable digital platform for the client. With a clean design, organized product hierarchy, and seamless integration with Contentful, the internal team can now manage updates independently. The combination of optimized performance, consistent Instagram integration, and user-focused design greatly enhanced the brand’s online presence and usability for design professionals.
