Earth Observatory Singapore touts revamped website with Bray Leino Splash

Earth Observatory Singapore at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) has revamped its website to make it more sustainable and in line with the organisation's ethos. Tech and creative digital marketing agency Bray Leino Splash was engaged to redevelop its website, enhance the user experience, and leverage its sustainable web design methodologies to lower carbon emissions of the website. 

The revamp saw Bray Leino Splash conducting an in-depth analysis of the existing website, before re-engineering the site from the ground up. Gathering feedback from customer-facing teams, before combining it together with user data from site analytics, the agency created user journeys for customers to get faster, easier access to the most frequently browsed content on the site. 

From analysing the pages with high bounce rates, it was able to streamline over 10,000 pages of content from the research pages. This reduced the number of templates and increased re-usable components throughout the site, making it more efficient and cost-effective.

Following, essential sustainability principles such as a default dark mode, efficient typography, streamlining dynamic content and media optimisation of video files to lower data consumption were incorporated. 

For the default dark mode, in particular, the agency explained that the visual design avoided pure white, and instead used light colours on text for clarity and legibility. Black was used where possible for high energy savings on OLED displays.

Additionally, Bray Leino Splash faced the challenge of balancing between using web fonts and system fonts. While using web fonts for everything would have enabled enhanced aesthetics, it came with a download penalty. At the same time, using only system fonts would have limited the agency from using brand typography effectively. As such, the agency came to a compromise of using only one web font for headlines and system defaults everywhere else. 

Meanwhile, to engage in media optimisation, Bray Leino Splash chose to use a 50KB video thumbnail image, and only loaded the video in a modal where the user clicks the image resulting in less data consumption while not compromising the user experience. 

Eventually, the end result of these various considerations was a site that provides visitors with smooth access to content without comprising user experience. In fact, according to Bray Leino Splash, it managed to lower carbon dioxide emissions of the website by over 60%. 

“We’re very proud of the new website and feel it is a fantastic representation of the work we undertake here at the Earth Observatory of Singapore. I would like to thank the team at Bray Leino Splash for their dedication in partnering with us for this project," Andrew Krupa, Director, CPO and director of advancement at EOS, said. 

Joshua Lee, managing director of BLS, said: “We are tremendously proud, and extremely excited at the possibilities of using our expertise to help reduce the carbon footprint of our clients’ websites and promote a greener way to do business." 

Separately, BLS was also appointed by Far East Hospitality in February as its web development and UX agency for two years. The agency is currently tasked with enhancing the existing digital experience of their customers, and is utilising its Sitecore expertise to create best-in-class UX for Far East Hospitality's customers.

At the same time, BLS was also been appointed the digital and social media agency for Far East Organisation's newest luxury development, The Cairnhill. The engagement saw the agency take the lead in establishing and maintaining digital brand awareness and lead generation across Singapore and Indonesia.

Chia Ai Ling, director of communications and community engagement for SG Enable, said then that the team at Bray Leino Splash put up a strong proposal that showcased its expertise in UX research, web design and e-accessibility.

"What impressed us most was their adaptability and the insights they shared when we informed them that the revamp of our corporate website needed to take into account SG Enable’s entire digital ecosystem which consists of diverse stakeholders and multiple related websites," she explained previously. 

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