Information Sharing through Copernicus’ SESA Portal

The Copernicus Service in Support to EU External and Security Actions (“SESA”) is the European geospatial information service that assists the EU and its Member States in their operations and interests where security issues are at stake. It is part of the Security Service, one of the six core services provided by the Copernicus Earth Observation component of the European Union Space Program.

To ensure consistency across the Copernicus ecosystem, SESA needed to update its website’s style and format to align with Copernicus's visual guidelines. The main goal was to promote the Copernicus SESA Service by providing information, raising awareness among the broadest possible audience and potential new users, boosting user engagement, and contributing to Copernicus' global communication activities.

We designed and developed a complete presentation portal for the Copernicus SESA Service, focusing on end-to-end user experience (UX) design that facilitates content exploration, guarantees user support, and enhances overall service awareness.

In the beginning, we clarified the client's requirements and broke them down in detail to define the most understandable and clear information architecture of the website together with the client. After its approval, the work continued with designing the screen flow and the website itself. The design phase was concluded after the clickable prototype's approval and the desktop and mobile designs. Development work began after the design phase was completed. Initially, the Drupal CMS was initialized, and basic settings were applied. Next, the website's structure was defined, and the design was implemented. The basic content and translations were gradually added. Upon completion, the website underwent acceptance testing. After confirming the correctness of all test scenarios, the website was handed over to the client, fulfilling all of the client's handover requirements.

We adapted the web portal for the Copernicus SESA Service to a new style guide, improved the UX and UI, and modernized the site both in terms of design and technology. The modernization of the portal will enhance the clarity of the provided information, allowing better dissemination of knowledge about the service and its benefits to the public.