Silver Fern

Kentucky, US · 2020

Server-side rendered React with TypeScript, Next.js and Netlify-powered website. We're talking about state-of-the-art modern frontend development with pixel-perfect UX and a highly maintainable JS (JavaScript) codebase.

01CONTEXT

Silverfern is an Internet of Things and software startup built by growers for growers. The Kentucky original offers high performance, highly interoperable software, data analytics, and customised technology for horticulture businesses all across the globe.

With their products and services already providing their customers with top-quality experiences, it was time to take their brand to the next level.

The team at Silverfern was launching their first public website, so there was a lot of pressure to build something that would live up to expectations.

02Challenge

The main challenge was operating on a tight deadline. Investor rounds and business pitches were already scheduled and the website was designed to be the main pitch deck of the team.

We defined short sprints with well-defined deliverables, frequent client reviews and complete transparency of the process. These were at the heart of the project's success.

Careful choice of technology, prioritising features and crafting alternative scenarios along with clear, constant communication was critical for the project's success.

Simplify your horticulture business with technology for growers. Software, data analytics, and customized technology — built by growers for growers.

Turn your horticulture business data into actionable insights. It's hard to juggle forecasting, space planning, replenishment, filling orders, and your business data. That's why we created a suite of programs, mobile apps, and IoT devices that let you get back to what you do best: running your greenhouse.

You can see the entire page at: https://silverfern.group

03Experience

The website is a great example of translating complex business processes into a flowing story, that takes a user from a place where they know nothing about the company to a place where they have a solid understanding of how SilverFern can help their business.

The whole UX (user experience) is a perfect blend between hard, cold data and visual storytelling.

We understand that our visitor's time is precious, therefore, the website empowers the user by providing tools like a smart navigation, that brings them directly to the place of interest. The content is structured along a modular design that is clear and concise. Calls to action are placed to help conversions and drive visitor action.

04brand

The business has already built a strong brand, but we found lots of places where we could step in and make small but important adjustments. We also updated the color palette which would allow us to build semantically rich user interactions and iconography.

05Technology

The team at Silverfern is a highly technical group of individuals. Since they already had a team that would have to integrate with the website at some point, we had to choose a technology stack familiar to their engineers. The choice was obvious and a good fit for our project: React with TypeScript server rendered by Next.js.

06Front-end

From our experience, quality micro-interactions and smooth animations are some of the key points to creating a fantastic UX (user experience). Therefore we spent a lot of time getting these right. The website was built on top of Vercel's Next.js in order to take advantage of the SEO boosting capabilities of server-side rendering. All that on top of React 16.0.13 (latest as of the time of development), with TypeScript as our favorite flavor of typed JavaScript.

We used SCSS as our flavor of choice CSS pre-compiler, accessible ARIA HTML5 to create the frontend.

07mobile

All content was optimized for a smooth mobile experience without sacrificing any of the desktop functionality and because the website is mostly static, the result was a blazing fast website that's simply a joy to use.

IoT devices combine hardware and software, so you can control greenhouse equipment from your web browser or mobile device — anywhere, anytime.

08outcomes

They're excellent. The team was flexible upfront. We had a tight timeline, and their team actually under promised and over delivered.

They did a phenomenal job. It's hard to come up with critiques because we felt very well taken care of.

Kevin Short