Piscine Direct Usine PDU — PDU — turning a dated catalogue into a digital sales channel

Context

Piscine Direct Usine is part of Groupe Deco, a French swimming pool manufacturer operating through a direct-to-consumer model.

After several years collaborating with the group across digital projects, I joined the redesign with an existing understanding of the sector, its customers and the commercial model behind the business.

The website had to do more than look better

PDU’s previous website reflected an earlier stage of the business.

The visual language felt dated, the catalogue offered limited hierarchy and customers still had to rely heavily on direct contact to understand what a pool project might involve.

For a product shaped by dimensions, equipment, installation and budget, that created unnecessary friction early in the journey.

The redesign was therefore not just about updating the interface.

It was about making the website more useful before the first conversation ever happened.

Price was the missing piece

A review of the market showed that most competitors already covered the basics of the category reasonably well.

They displayed products, provided some supporting content and, in some cases, offered additional guidance through FAQs or chat.

What remained harder to understand online was price.

For customers, cost is one of the earliest and most decisive questions in the journey. Yet in this category, that answer was still largely locked behind a sales conversation.

That gap revealed a clear opportunity for PDU: bring pricing earlier into the journey through a guided digital tool.

A pool is not a SKU

Designing the pricing tool meant acknowledging a simple reality: a pool cannot be treated like a standard ecommerce product.

Price does not depend on a single selection. It is shaped by multiple variables, including model, dimensions, finish, equipment and project conditions.

Showing all of that complexity at once would only make the journey harder to follow.

The challenge was not to remove complexity, but to organise it.

The flow had to guide users step by step, helping them define their project without overwhelming them.

Designing the pricing flow

The tool was designed as a progressive journey rather than a static form.

Users begin by exploring the catalogue and understanding the available models. From there, the pricing flow narrows the decision through a sequence of manageable steps, moving from product selection to project definition and finally to an indicative quotation.

Each step was intended to answer a specific question:

· What type of pool fits my needs?
· Which choices affect the project?
· What could it cost?
· What information should I share next?

This structure helped turn a technically dense process into a clearer and more approachable path.

Then the interface had to carry that clarity

Once the journey was defined, the challenge moved to the interface itself.

The catalogue, product pages and pricing flow all needed to feel clear, structured and trustworthy, while handling a significant amount of product and project information.

The design focused on visual hierarchy, progressive disclosure and a more contemporary digital language that could support both usability and credibility.

Rather than treating the website as a simple brochure, the interface was designed to work as a commercial tool — helping users browse, understand and move forward with greater confidence.

From broad criteria to a concrete configuration

A guided journey that helps users define their project step by step, combining product information, technical options and an indicative price.

Turning technical choices into understandable decisions

One of the hardest parts of the flow was translating technical installation choices into something customers could actually compare.

The difference between the available kits affected equipment, preparation and ultimately the project itself, but presenting that information as raw specifications would have made the decision harder.

The interface therefore focused on making the trade-offs visible at a glance, helping users understand what each option included before moving forward.

The goal was not to simplify the product, but to simplify the decision.

Detail without losing the journey

As users moved through the quotation flow, some decisions required more context than a simple label or specification could provide.

Additional information was therefore surfaced within the flow itself, allowing users to understand a model, compare an option or review technical details without losing their place in the journey.

The final steps then brought the accumulated choices together, moving from configuration to a structured quotation request.

The goal was to keep the journey continuous: enough detail to support the decision, without forcing users to start over or leave the flow.

Outcome

The project repositioned the website as more than a digital catalogue.

By combining a clearer interface with a guided pricing journey, the redesign aimed to help users understand the offer earlier, define their project more confidently and approach the brand with greater clarity.

The website and pricing tool were developed after my involvement in the project ended, so I do not attribute post-launch performance to the work shown here.

What this case reflects is the product thinking behind the proposal: using design to reduce friction, structure complexity and make the digital channel more commercially useful.