Royal Dutch Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. With approximately 83,000 employees in more than 70 countries, they are among the largest in their industry worldwide.
From innovator to digital reporting expert
In 2010 we realized the first online annual report for Shell. At that time Shell was a pioneer in digital reporting. Since then, a lot has changed: web technologies have evolved considerably and the report has evolved with them. Since then, we have continued to develop the report in close cooperation with Shell and redesigned it several times. Today, nexxar and Shell together produce 6 reports in English every year: Global Social Performance Report, Annual Report and Accounts, Investor Highlights, Investors Handbook, Sustainability Report and the Tax Contribution Report. Since 2016 we have been producing almost all reports online first. All reports are published using the corporate design as full-responsive HTML reports and as PDFs generated from a single source, our CMS.
All in line with the brand and in a consistent design
All reports are based on the lead design of the corporate website. This ensures a consistent look and feel. With the last re-design the reports became more colorful and friendly. Each report has a primary color, so that despite a unified design a quick orientation is possible.
Graphics: Complexity easily explained
With its worldwide branches and interconnections, Shell is a complex company. In order to make the organization and individual processes more transparent to the stakeholders, great attention was paid to designing important details with infographics, interactive elements and animations so that they are quick and easy to understand. The business model is explained with an illustration, which is additionally animated online. Individual processes and organizational details were illustrated with interactive graphics. This offers the advantage that information can be viewed piece by piece. This information layering prevents an information overload and enables a focus on the information that the user is interested in.
In the sustainability report, the topic wheel and the SDG filters provide two filter options that allow the user to find the information that interests him.
Shell’s activities around the globe can be quickly understood through the interactive world map. By enlarging the assets, one gains an insight into the projects and branches.
Content: Outstanding Accessibility
Accessibility was particularly important to us and Shell. For this purpose, graphics are also designed in the best possible way. In order to make reading possible for people with color blindness or red-green weakness as well, all graphics were designed to display information only by using shapes rather than colors and to ensure that all colors have sufficient contrast. An alternative text for graphics allows visually impaired users to read the graphics with a screen reader. Search engines also use this text to recognize the image content.
Search: All information in one place
The annual publication of 6 reports generates a lot of content. In order to give users an overview, a reporting summary page was set up on Shell.com. It offers an overview of all current reports. Additionally, the user can search all current and old reports in a central search.
Production: One system to rule them all
All reports are filled via a central source: The nexxar CMS. This central source ensures that all publications (websites and PDFs) show congruent data and that no errors occur when transferring data from a PDF to the website (or vice versa).
