Shell Brand 2.0

Once-in-a-Decade Brand Revamp: Fresh, Contemporary & Human

Shell’s Brand team engaged me to lead the redesign and consolidation of their web portfolio as part of their largest Brand Transformation in a decade, encompassing both digital and analog touchpoints globally.

As Lead Designer, I oversaw the design process in collaboration with project managers, brand advisors, and the IT team.
I initially conducted over 36 hours of interviews with colleagues across various locations, including Rio, Houston, and Manila, which drove a user-centric strategic shift.

As we moved to ideation and deliverables, I championed and ran extensive & iterative user testing on Shell’s primary sites: ‘Brand Central’ and ‘Creative Hub’.

The project’s launch resulted in a fresh contemporary and clear framework with a major overhaul in global communications, including their 150 + websites.

There was a notable increase in web traffic across both websites, in particular the ease of finding the toolkits and assets for projects.

Team

Olivier Cottin, Stuart Preece, Elia Aliberti, Hima Tandimeti, Benjamin Jones,
Vaibhav Agraval

Skills

User Research & Testing
Data Analytics
Stakeholder Management
Advanced Prototyping
Product Design
Product Strategy
Design System
Visual Design

My Role

Lead Product Designer

Timeline

Nov 2021 - Feb 2023

Location

London HQ
Amsterdam & The Hague

Unpacking the Design Process

Background

Shell's digital real estate consisted of significant overlap of content and purpose across a range of different technology frameworks.

I guided the Brand team to gain clarity of their ecosystem, by analyzing the nature of the content, as well as mapping out their Information Architecture.

The outcome was a clearer sense of priority and an established trust in design capabilities to consolidate and simplify.

Leading the UX Roadmap

Shell’s digital ecosystem was fragmented, with significant content overlap across various technology frameworks. This issue became evident during my initial research, which included over 30 hours of one-on-one video interviews.

Additionally, the legacy of the Brand encompassed hundreds of guideline documents from different agencies, making it crucial to uncover the users’ true needs. I led the Brand team in clarifying their ecosystem by analyzing content structure and mapping out their Information Architecture.

The proposed timeline allowed for continuous user testing, ensuring that new content was aligned with user expectations.

Shifting to the User

Throughout the project, I championed and led iterative user tesing, combined with Adobe Data Analytics - ensuring that the design was continuously refined based on real user-feedback.

This rigorous process resulted in

A strategic shift towards user-centered design
Simplified site navigations based on user needs
Unpacking of the Brand Strategy

Prototyping for user testing

I took a hands-on approach, creating and testing multiple Brand Central prototypes with users like filmmakers, creative directors, brand advisors, and marketers.

The user testing focused on:

• Navigational improvements (coherence of the language, contrast, motion behaviour, hierarchy)
• Validating content and language on the Landing Page
• Gathering feedback on the new Brand Standards (logo, color, typography, downloadable content)

Making it easier to filter

The Product owner of the Creative Hub, in consolidating the portfolio of thousands of assets that were important for launch - seeked guidance on how users could find it easier to use the filter.

In my approach, I analyzed the entire taxonomy based on User Testing (9 users) & Surveys where we received thousands of answers. All of this helped a clear design process where we prioritized the needs of the user (sequence) as well as introducing numbering (mental model).

Upturn in engagement

Following the launch, there was a remarkable increase in usage. While the introduction of new guidelines and assets played a role, the real success was evident in the ease with which users could navigate both sites.

The new architecture proved to be simpler, more straightforward, and highly intuitive.

Designs for Launch

With the New Brand Standards set for the launch in Spring of 2023, the websites were designed strongly with the user needs in mind, highlighting the essential Standards and setting a very clear framework for the purpose of the ecosystem of websites.

Other Projects

2016 - 2020

S&P Global Cflow ⟶

Analyzing Commodities at Sea.

2020

S&P Global Platform ⟶

Centralizing Commodity Market Critical Data

2015

BBC News ⟶

Personalizing News to a Global Audience

Shell Brand 2.0