Honeywell is a Fortune 100 company who produce a variety of consumer and commercial products. Their aerospace division is the largest manufacturer of aircraft engines and other aviation products in the world.
Honeywell Aerospace provide a suite of products designed to improve efficiency, safety and connectivity within the aviation industry. Each one has associated data available, highlighting the benefits and improvements to efficiency.
Displaying the physical products and relying on the data sheets in not enough. It doesn’t do justice to the benefits or the technologies involved. Neither does it reflect the status of Honeywell as a leading technological innovator. They needed to change the way they speak to their customers.
Our approach was to create something that invited people to explore. Instead of forcing information on people, we created an interactive system that allows people to find information at their own pace.
The result of a three-year collaborative relationship is a visually rich, engaging interactive touch-enabled web application, built to showcase Honeywell's aerospace products. Using 3D models set in distinct environments, along with moving imagery and film-like motion graphics, we built something that grabs interest and prompts further exploration.
Each 3D scene is designed to deliver huge visual impact, introducing the products in a context that excites Honeywell’s customers. Storyboards were created detailing the aircraft’s animation, environment and visual effects. The 3D models were then animated and composited into each scene creating the immersive cinematic experience.
Visual effects such as motion blur, camera shake, vapour trails and sun glare were crucial to bringing the realism and drama to each scene. The engine showcase involved taking 100% accurate models and texturing them with specifically shot reference material.
How do you take something built for a 50” touchscreen, and provide the same experience when viewed on a 9.7 inch tablet screen?
The original interactive piece was built in Flash. It remained the best solution giving the most freedom for animation and interaction for use on a large touchscreen. After launch, conversations with Honeywell opened up around requirements to make a portable version. The quickest and most efficient way to solve this was to use the code base already built, and use Adobe Air to create a native application. However long term in looking forward at the evolution of the application, future proofing its support of emerging devices and platforms, there was only one real answer. The next step was taking the application and converting it to a fully responsive HTML5 version hosted online and accessed through a web browser.
The experience is the same regardless of device, and maintains the core values of the project: invite exploration, inform through interaction.
Sometimes creating something visually stunning, and letting the strength of the experience of interacting with it be the key to solving the problem, is the best approach. Honeywell had one problem — selling their products wasn't it. What they struggled with was communicating the value and benefit of the range of products in a compelling way, to build interest and trust.
Our solution overcomes the issue of trying to display unenticing products and content. In this case, closed black boxes and sheets of data in an exciting way. By inviting customers to engage in the experience of exploring the products themselves, the Honeywell sales team were able to adopt a far less intrusive approach of generating interest and increasing leads. Ultimately, transforming the way they spoke to their aerospace customers around the world. The site has since been shortlisted for a BIMA Award in the 2015 B2B & Professional Services category.
Sequence have always delivered robust, well-designed solutions across all of our businesses. Their ability to challenge our initial ideas and offer up multiple solutions to our problems has led to us having a slick, responsive and interactive framework which is now accessible to everyone, everywhere! Extremely pleased with the end results.
Stephen Woodward Honeywell
