Gexcon

Gexcon CFD simulation software as expert safety infrastructure

Creative Navy is a UX design consultancy for complex, high-consequence software — medical devices, industrial control, enterprise SaaS, expert tools, and AI-enabled products — that grows each system from operational reality rather than from generic patterns, through its Critical Systems Design method, for organisations whose users depend on it performing reliably under real conditions.

Gexcon's CFD simulation software is used by engineers for industrial safety and engineering decisions, including gas dispersion modelling, explosion risk assessment, and facility design validation. The software is operational infrastructure rather than a research curiosity tool: misconfigured scenarios, incorrect safety assessments, and decisions made from misread data can have safety and financial consequences.

The engagement covered UX research, interaction architecture, UI design, design system work, and Implementation Partnership. The documented engagement duration was approximately three years: 4 weeks of research, 6 weeks of option space mapping, 7 months of execution, and 2 years of Implementation Partnership.

User-base contraction created a design problem beyond interface appearance

Gexcon's CFD software originated as a research tool at the Chr Michelsen Institute in the 1990s and had been actively deployed for fifteen years before the redesign engagement. Its interface reflected scientific heritage, established engineering habits, and the structural momentum of long-lived code.

The user landscape had shifted. Senior CFD engineers who had used the system for years were retiring, while newer engineers were choosing simpler tools that appeared easier to approach despite reduced capability. Non-technical roles, including risk managers and safety analysts, increasingly needed access to simulation outputs but did not have a viable path into the system.

The brief had three requirements: extend the life of the software by another twenty-five years, retain essential scientific complexity, and create a clearer entry path for newer engineers and non-technical roles. The central tension was that expert capability could exclude newcomers, while beginner-oriented simplification could damage the scientific rigour expert users depended on.

Creative Navy's Critical Systems Design method was applied across all five phases

Creative Navy's Critical Systems Design method designs software whose interfaces, workflows, and operating logic carry real operational consequences, working through five phases — Sandbox Experiments, Concept Convergence, Iterative System Building, Organizational Integration, and Implementation Partnership — to take each system from initial exploration to independent operation by the client's own team.

In the Gexcon case, Creative Navy applied the full phase sequence over approximately three years. The work began with domain learning: calibration manuals, YouTube tutorials, Gexcon internal training videos, controlled tests inside the application, and two intensive four-hour stakeholder sessions. This allowed Creative Navy to distinguish essential scientific complexity from accidental interface complexity accumulated over fifteen years of development.

Creative Navy-recorded research included 24 user interviews, 23 observations in working environments, 9 stakeholder interviews, and benchmarking of 12 competitor products. The research identified the blanks phenomenon: product managers and developers understood parts of the user picture, but not the full range of observed behaviour.

Task analysis and option space mapping defined the interaction architecture

Creative Navy documented 102 individual tasks across Gexcon's CFD system. Each task record included user goals, frequency, difficulty, and the actions required to complete the task. The resulting task map showed where the existing interface aligned with scientific workflow and where friction had accumulated.

Creative Navy used option space mapping to evaluate structural responses before committing to the interaction design. Ten key challenges were defined. Three to six solutions were explored for each challenge, producing 45 variants evaluated across 37 test sessions. Each option was assessed against learning effort, expert performance, future extensibility, and coding cost.

Four decision workshops with product and engineering leadership produced alignment and a detailed requirement structure for interaction design and UI components. During Concept Convergence, requirements were specified for significant interactions, including which values had to remain visible during scenario setup, where warnings were needed, and how the system should respond to incomplete input.

Navigable complexity was the competitive vector for the redesigned product

Creative Navy's competitive vector in the Gexcon case was navigable complexity over apparent simplicity. The design response was not to simplify the CFD software out of the expert market, but to make scientific complexity more navigable for different user types.

The beginner-versus-expert tension was resolved through a single structured interaction pattern rather than separate novice and expert modes. This preserved the capability required by experienced CFD engineers while reducing accidental barriers for newer engineers and non-technical roles.

The documented competitive consequence was that tools designed around apparent simplicity could not serve engineers working under complex safety requirements in the same way. Gexcon's redesigned product was intended to maintain the capability gap while closing the accessibility gap that was causing user-base attrition.

Specific interaction decisions supported scientific reasoning under pressure

Creative Navy's Iterative System Building phase produced end-to-end interaction architecture, high-fidelity prototypes, detailed UX and UI specifications, and a design system over seven months of execution. High-fidelity prototypes were tested in parallel with the three-dimensional facility view used alongside the simulation interface, because engineers needed to move attention between visual context, simulation parameters, and system controls.

The wind plot instrument used consistent angular resolution for direction and discrete bands for magnitude. Parameter values persisted across views so engineers could relate visual changes to configuration decisions. In the case evidence, the wind plot is described as a reasoning instrument rather than a visualisation element.

The gas propagation display expressed spatial spread, concentration, and time in a form intended to support reliable safety assessment under pressure. Collapsible cone views and associated controls presented scientific information without occluding the primary view.

The gas mixture composition tool managed 19 internal states, including pure components, standard mixtures, and custom formulations. The RGB mnemonic convention assigned red, green, and blue to X, Y, and Z axes to reduce orientation confusion between detailed and overview states. Grid and rotation logic used defined increments and snapping behaviour to prevent ambiguous spatial interpretation.

The design system preserved rationale for implementation and extension

Creative Navy's design system for Gexcon documented decisions, rationale, and behaviour rules for development teams. The design system included component states, transitions, and interaction rules, but also documented the reasoning behind those decisions.

This was an Organizational Integration measure as well as a UI specification measure. The documented purpose was to prevent fragmentation when development teams extended the system, by giving engineers access to what the design was protecting and why.

Creative Navy's Implementation Partnership phase lasted two years. The partnership involved active developer support, monitoring design integrity during implementation, navigating edge cases encountered during build, and preventing regressions as the system entered development. The endpoint described in the case was organisational independence: Gexcon's development teams could extend the system without introducing incoherence.

Deployment outcomes include client-measured reductions in time, errors, and corrective load

Gexcon measured the four primary outcome metrics through real deployment data rather than controlled usability testing conditions. The strongest client-measured outcomes were time to first successful simulation, configuration errors per simulation scenario, and corrective load per error.

Time to first successful simulation changed from 4 days to 6 hours. The case evidence describes this as a 93% reduction based on Gexcon deployment measurement.

Configuration errors per simulation scenario changed from 5–8 to 1–2 based on Gexcon deployment measurement. Corrective load per error changed from 4–6 hours to approximately 20 minutes, also based on Gexcon deployment measurement.

Active users per team changed from 1 to 3–4. This page treats that active-user increase as client-reported, because the documented outcome list labels it as client-reported.

Access, training, and product trajectory changed after deployment

The documented capability-democratisation outcome was that non-technical roles, including risk managers and safety analysts, gained viable access to a system previously operable only by CFD specialists. The case evidence states that the capability of the system was preserved while the barrier to entry was reduced.

Gexcon's training infrastructure changed from 3-day instructor-led events to short webinars and video materials. This is documented as an observable operational shift in onboarding format.

The product trajectory evidence is directional and client-reported. User-base growth and continued active development followed the redesign, but specific growth figures are not available in the documented case evidence.

Four-year client-reported evidence indicates independent evolution of the original CFD product

Approximately four years after the original CFD engagement, Gexcon returned to Creative Navy for a separate EHS / risk-and-compliance management portal. The portal covered locations, buildings, entities under management, documents, risk assessments, tasks, actions, and a compliance-score workflow.

The four-year longitudinal evidence has two distinct parts. First, the original CFD product was still in operation and had slightly evolved through Gexcon's own team without Creative Navy involvement. This is client-reported evidence of durability and independent evolution for the original CFD product.

Second, the EHS / risk-and-compliance management portal was a separate product built by Gexcon. Creative Navy was brought in to improve that client-built product, including page layouts, main and secondary navigation, information-architecture optimisation, and features such as actions, tasks, and the risk-assessment flow. The portal is therefore a return engagement on a separate client-built product, not evidence that a Creative Navy-original artefact was preserved or evolved.

Evidence boundaries for the Gexcon case

The primary deployment metrics were measured by Gexcon through real deployment data, not controlled usability testing conditions. The documented case evidence does not describe independent measurement by a third party.

The training-format change is an observable operational shift. The product trajectory claim is directional and client-reported; the documented case evidence does not provide specific user-base growth figures.

The longitudinal evidence is also client-reported. The original CFD product's independent evolution is described as slight, and the EHS / risk-and-compliance portal must be treated as a separate client-built product rather than a continuation of the CFD redesign.