A members platform that puts Earth Observation and satellite intelligence directly in the hands of underwriters, brokers and claims teams, in time to matter.
As Senior UX/UI Designer at Skytek, I shaped the Satellite Club product experience: how one platform serves two very different audiences, how the reports and imagery are structured and presented, and the interface and visual direction.
The problem was access. An underwriter pricing a Gulf tanker risk, or a claims manager assessing a hurricane loss, does not want a data feed, a tasking request form or a GIS tool. They want a defensible answer about a specific location, quickly, in language that survives being put in front of a client or a court.
Members get commissioned proprietary reports from the Skytek expert panel, image acquisition tools, advice on cost-effective tasking, priority access to major-event reports, workshops, and expert witness support. That is a service, not a stream of imagery.
The framing also settled a positioning question. Sold as software, it competes with GIS platforms on features it does not want to compete on. Sold as a club with an expert panel behind it, the product is judgement, and the technology is how the judgement gets made.
A first-time visitor needs to understand what Earth Observation does for their book of business. An existing member arrives looking for the report published this morning on the Strait of Hormuz.
Rather than splitting into a marketing site and a separate logged-in app, the page runs the proposition top-down and puts the live reports high on the same page. Login is a lightweight overlay rather than a destination, so a returning member never has to go through the pitch to reach the reports.
Both are (re)insurance professionals: underwriters, brokers, claims managers, loss adjusters, corporate risk managers, legal counsel and risk modellers. What differs is where they are in their relationship with the service.
Prospective members
Existing members
This content ends up in pricing decisions, claims files and legal submissions. That raises the bar on how it is presented.
01
Every satellite image carries its location, capture dates and provider. Nothing is cropped or colour-graded in a way that would not survive scrutiny.
02
In a fast-moving war-risk or catastrophe scenario, a report from ten days ago is a different product to one from this morning. Dates are given the same weight as titles.
03
Aggregation, exposure, hull and cargo, renewal. The interface speaks the reader’s vocabulary, and keeps the orbital mechanics behind the curtain.
Paired acquisitions of the same coordinates are the most persuasive thing in the product. A fixed template keeps the location, both capture dates and the framing constant, so the change is the only thing that varies. Drag the handle to compare, or choose another event.
Francis Scott Key Bridge, Baltimore · 24 Feb 2024 to 29 Mar 2024
Before
After
Pacific Palisades, California · 2023 to 2025
Before
After
Salty Sam Marina, Fort Myers
Before
After
The homepage runs in the order a visitor’s questions arrive: what this is, the latest reports as proof the service is live, who it is for, sample imagery, the sectors it covers and what membership includes. Members skip the pitch and go straight to the reports.
Home
The hero makes a single claim, Earth observation at underwriting speed, and asks for one action: become a member. The reports library follows immediately, then the audience list, so visitors can see whether it is for them before any technology is explained.
Close-up · Reports library
Reports can be narrowed by risk type (war, marine, wildfire, climate, catastrophe), with a count beside each so members can see where activity is.
Each card gives a short summary in insurance terms, enough to decide whether to open the full report.
Tags show the risk type, and the publication date sits on the same line, because a report’s age changes its value.
One clear action per card, leading to the full assessment.
Reports
Every report follows the same template. The findings come first: a short summary, an ‘At a glance’ panel of key figures and a PDF download for the file. A contents list lets members jump between sections, and the evidence sits underneath: data tables with their sources, dated and captioned imagery and, where damage is mapped, a drag-to-compare layer over the satellite image. The imagery providers are credited on every page.
Design decision · Anatomy of a report
The thermal capture sits directly under the paragraph that describes it, so the fire clusters named in the text can be found on the image.
The figures an insurer needs first (acres burned, homes inside the perimeter, their value, residents evacuated) sit in an ‘At a glance’ panel beside the summary.
Each image carries its capture date and time, and a numbered caption gives the location and source, so the evidence can be cited.
Void
#02040D
Deep Space
#131A2E
Ultraviolet
#9C4DFE
Ionosphere
#C9A7FF
Aurora
#FFDAFF
The design turns specialist Earth observation into something an insurance professional can work with. A member can see what has changed, open a dated, attributed assessment of a specific location, find the figures that matter at a glance, check the imagery for themselves and file the report as a PDF. A prospective member sees the same evidence before deciding to join.
The measure was not whether the imagery impressed anyone. It was whether an underwriter changed their decision because of what they saw.