We started by shaping the story and defining the purpose before agreeing on a name. Nexus was born, both in terms of identity and vision.

The name ‘Nexus’ came from an exhaustive, collaborative branding process with multiple stakeholders across the organisation. With its definition rooted in connectivity and meaning a “central focal point”, it reflected both the scale and ambition and how it aims to transform the manufacturing industry.

To build anticipation, we needed to introduce Nexus to the world and tell the story of how it will drive the future of manufacturing. Starting with the Nexus brand, our content specialists created a story, tone of voice and visual style to promote what was to come. To launch Nexus, we created an interactive launch page utilising video and advanced animation to showcase the functionality and benefits. This experience matched the Nexus ambition and won many awards, including a coveted Site of the day on Awwwards, for its creativity and modern storytelling.

Bringing a new brand to market and building momentum

Nexus was officially unveiled at the annual HxGN Live conference in Las Vegas, where we created an immersive 3D-style showroom that allowed attendees to explore the benefits of Hexagon's software and hardware products in real-time.

We had the unique opportunity to announce Nexus' advanced collaboration functionality at the annual Microsoft Build developer conference, where the Chief Executive of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, presented our video showcasing how Nexus integrates with Microsoft Teams to improve collaboration.

Shortly after, we created another video to show how Nexus will be at the heart of the smart manufacturing future. Taking all of the branding, content, vision and ideas, we brought them together in a video to announce Nexus to new audiences.

A new approach to design, creating a better user experience

Hexagon has a long history of developing market-leading software products. Additionally, as the Hexagon portfolio has grown to offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions for the entire manufacturing eco-system many of the products follow different design styles and approaches.

Nexus presented an opportunity to bring all of Hexagon's software together under a modern and easy-to-use interface while also being able to design at scale. To achieve this, we developed a comprehensive design system that could be applied to all future software products and updates. After researching the software portfolio and existing design systems, we selected MUI, a react component library and design system based on Material Design, as our base. Using this and the new Nexus branding, we created a complete design system that could be rolled out across multiple software types, from web-based apps to complex engineering desktop software.

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Creating a user-friendly content portal

Many of Hexagon's existing customer portals were inherited from acquisitions and different business units, leading to a disparate experience for customers who wanted access to the entire portfolio. Our team collaborated with stakeholders and customers to define the requirements for a modern customer portal that would improve their work experience. We conducted customer interviews and concept testing, prioritised core functionality, and built the portal. The portal's core features include a sign-on (SSO) powered by Auth0, a solutions finder and software and hardware catalogue, as well as a powerful search engine powered by Coveo.

After launching the minimum viable product, we invited pilot customers to beta test the portal and provide feedback for improvement. We continued to iterate on the portal with new functionality such as live documentation, improved support, e-learning, and multi-lingual support. To manage the complex subject matter and approvals, we implemented a custom content management system powered by Sanity. The CMS utilised content as data with tagging to connect various content pieces together, enabling a consistent and unified approach to content governance.

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Designing web-based applications for the launch of new Nexus products 

Our UX process and experience design principles ensured that we designed effectively, with close customer involvement. To date, we have designed and released three new Nexus software products as beta products.

To facilitate the internal teams' use of the new design system, we created two NPM packages. These packages enable all new Nexus applications developed by the teams to quickly incorporate the new design system into their React applications.