Creating a unified and intuitive experience

TGS is a leading provider in the energy data and intelligence industry, working to help clients make informed decisions in a variety of energy sectors. While their 40+ years of experience has helped them establish a reputation for quality oil & gas data, their recent expansion into the renewables space has created a need for a brand refresh and an updated online presence. TGS approached us to redesign their website to better reflect their current efforts as they expand further into the solar, wind, and carbon capture industries, and create an improved and unified user experience across their new and legacy sectors.

Empathizing with overwhelmed users

By conducting stakeholder interviews in conjunction with an audit of the current website, we gained a strong understanding of pain points to address in our redesign. Our research showed that TGS’ years of growth without a focus on maintaining the user experience had resulted in an site that failed to provide users with a clear understanding of TGS offerings. Users felt overwhelmed by the disorganized presentation of content and confusing navigation hierarchy.

TGS’ recent acquisition of companies in the solar & wind sectors amplified these problems, as their site had not been updated to reflect these new business segments. We took on the challenge of unifying all of TGS’ current business segments under one umbrella, while also streamlining the overall experience to prevent the content overload and confusing navigation options users were currently experiencing.

Staying adaptable with a modular approach

TGS’ website was massive. Spanning five energy divisions, sustainability & investor centers, multiple blogs, and company info pages, the current site made sure we had a lot on our plate. To make sure that our work addressed TGS’ concerns across all portions of their site, we decided to take a modular approach with our redesign. Using our site audit as a guide, we identified the high level modules that were used throughout the site. Designing these modules before creating full pages gave us the flexibility to mix and match building blocks as necessary, and ensured a unified design language across TGS’ massive library of content.

The homepage was a significant area of focus during this stage, as we had to ensure that TGS’ five segments were immediately clear to users upon landing on the site. We decided to implement an interactive selector that showed a preview of each division before leading users to their respective pages. This provided an intuitive way for users to view all of TGS’ product offerings in one place and gain a better understanding of each segment before diving into each section of the site.

Establishing a clear brand identity

TGS wanted branding for energy divisions to be distinct, with a unique color palette and logo for each division. With guidance from TGS, we applied branding guidelines for Seismic, Well, Wind, Solar, and Carbon divisions, as well as the TGS Master brand. By applying these styles to our building blocks, we were able to establish a unique identity for each of TGS’ sub brands and visually aid users in understanding where they were as they navigated the site. To further aid in orienting users while navigating the site, we made sure to include breadcrumb components to ensure that users would always have a clear understanding of which division and topic they were currently viewing.

As we began building page layouts using our modules, we focused on structuring each page to intuitively segment site content and clearly highlight calls to action. Each division page contained its own range of unique topics, so we decided to segment content by implementing secondary navigation tabs under the primary navigation bar. And depending on each division’s needs, we made sure to highlight a clear call to action to contact the TGS team or book a product demo in the division’s hero section.

Receiving our stakeholders’ blessing

To validate our designs, we created high fidelity prototypes for each of TGS’ five divisions and conducted usability testing with the same stakeholders we had recruited for our initial tests during the discovery phase. Their overall response to the redesign was very positive, with stakeholders reporting the revised presentation of energy divisions and page structures as clear, intuitive, and easy to navigate. One stakeholder went as far as to mention that the new site was “something that [she] would be proud to share,” whereas in the past she had avoided directing clients to certain pages as she felt they might be frustrated by their confusing presentation.

Our findings also helped us identify lingering problem areas to address before handing off our finalized designs. A few stakeholders noted that the naming conventions and terminology used throughout the site could be revised to avoid technical jargon and better communicate topics to target users in the industry — for example, referring to “Subsurface Data” instead as “Seismic and Well Data,” or “Divisions and Solutions” instead as “Industries.” Our research helped ensure that site presentation and information hierarchy was as clear as possible before our designs were approved for implementation.

The final word

Following our engagement, we supported TGS’ development team as they worked tirelessly to bring our redesign to life. The team was under a tight schedule to complete implementation within a little over a month after handoff, but our modular approach went a long way toward helping them meet their ambitious deadline.

The brand refresh is now live across TGS’ entire website, and they’ve seen a massive 405% increase in page views for their Seismic division compared to the previous analytics period. Overall website engagement is up 6%, and they’ve reported that Seismic, Well Data and Wind pages have entered the top 10 pages by view count, whereas in the past the list was mainly dominated by corporate-related content.

We’re thrilled to see our designs make an impact on real users, and hope to see our hard work continue to contribute to TGS’ future as a universal provider of energy data. You can view our work on the live TGS website here.