Context
Following our successful redesign of the corporate Centrica intranet cScape was asked to redesign the consumer-facing website for British Gas, the biggest brand in the UK energy market. www.house.co.uk is an online home management service for British Gas customers; it provides advice on all aspects of running a home and evokes the British Gas commitment to quality, safety and affordability.
Challenge
When cScape was asked to create a new front end for house.co.uk we were working within established design and branding parameters, tasked with the creation of page templates that conform to pre-existing sophisticated back end systems and working processes. We were asked to bring out user requirements like emergency phone numbers and provide British Gas marketing teams with more opportunities to promote products and services.
Solution
We worked closely with British Gas to interpret its brand and determine internal requirements across its business and marketing departments, running workshops to form the basis for high-level design recommendations. We produced concepts for the positioning of house.co.uk in relation to the British Gas brand, creating a new look & feel that expressed its drive towards a customer-focused culture.
Outcome
British Gas relaunched house.co.uk with cScape’s front end designs in December 2005, bringing the site more in line with the British Gas brand. Our redesign also provided more real estate for marketing as well as much valued access to user information higher up the architecture chain.