Improve commercial performance and strengthen the brand positioning of the global leader in high-performance tools

Desoutter, a global leader in high-performance industrial tools, had a website nearly 10 years old, disconnected from user expectations and current web standards. Brought in by Lonestone, I led the entire user research phase and co-designed the new website over 6 months, from defining the strategic pillars to final acceptance testing.

Desoutter Tools is an industrial manufacturer of pneumatic and electric assembly tools, founded in 1914, with 20 subsidiaries and a presence in 170 countries. The professional tools market is undergoing rapid transformation: industry 4.0, predictive maintenance, traceability, data valorization and an expanding range of services are pushing customer expectations well beyond a simple product catalogue. In this increasingly competitive landscape, digital presence has become a key commercial differentiator.

I independently led the research phase, combining three complementary methods.

Three focus groups were conducted: one with the team responsible for digital experience, a second with technician and engineer profiles focused on tools and services, and a third with sales and marketing profiles to capture business priorities.

A survey was then sent to the various international Customer Centers (North America, Eastern and Central Europe, United Kingdom, China, India…) to gather the needs and trends specific to each local market.

Finally, 5 individual or paired interviews allowed us to go deeper on the most significant topics that emerged from the earlier sessions.

As a synthesis, I defined 8 design pillars to guide design and technical decisions: simplification, improved access to products and solutions, greater emphasis on the human dimension, better accessibility of documentation, and more autonomy for prospects and customers.

Given the breadth of the existing site, we recommended an iterative approach to Desoutter: defining a solid MVP scope rather than rebuilding everything at once. We listed all screens to be designed, identified those prioritized for v1, then set up a shared tracking dashboard with all stakeholders, continuously updated by Florent and me.

Rather than designing screen by screen, we opted for a modular approach: first building independent blocks and their variants, then assembling pages from them. This decision had three direct effects: it allowed us to work in parallel with distinct scopes, produce a large volume of work within tight constraints, and significantly ease the developers' work for content administration on the client side via Dato CMS.

The visual challenge of this project was particularly delicate: modernizing the brand image without touching the existing colors or logo. We invested significant time in typographic research to identify a variable font capable of bringing rhythm and breathing room to each page, where the previous site sorely lacked visual hierarchy.

A significant part of the work involved defending our design choices with the client. Engineers by training, Desoutter's stakeholders had a natural tendency to want to fill every available space, much like an exhaustive technical datasheet. Convincing them that empty space is a deliberate design choice in its own right — and not a gap — was one of the recurring threads of the collaboration throughout the project.

The design work didn't stop at the developer handoff. For several weeks, Florent and I continued to adjust certain mockups as integration progressed, based on technical constraints identified along the way. This phase taught us how to preserve the original vision while staying pragmatic, distinguishing what was negotiable from what wasn't.

The v1 was delivered on time and warmly received internally. Beyond the metrics, the project achieved a less visible but equally structural goal: aligning internal teams and international subsidiaries around a website that finally represents the company at the level of its global leader positioning.

On this project, I sharpened a skill I wouldn't have spontaneously associated with a B2B industrial website: storytelling. Desoutter sells precision tools, but behind every tool there are engineers, assembly lines, and real-world performance stakes. Learning to tell those human stories rather than coldly displaying technical datasheets was one of the most lasting takeaways I carry from this project.