Benchmarking reveals a need to present the humanistic elements

I conducted UX benchmarking across six competitors in the NZ and AU markets, analysing how services were structured, communicated, and visually supported.

The research revealed a common gap: most competitors were highly tech-centric, with little emphasis on user needs or clear value propositions.

Attempts at a ‘human-led’ approach often felt either too DIY or overly corporate, lacking authenticity. These insights helped us shape a balanced, people-first experience that communicated credibility and care.

Ensuring we measure against the right metrics

With access to the client GA account, working with the SEO manager to assess the findings, we were able to gather high-level insights that would help us benchmark the new site, the insights included;

• Considerable more direct traffic than organic, suggesting that keywords were not used correctly on the site
• Inability to measure effectiveness of lead generation, as there was no contact form - only a listed number to call.
• 'About us' page had the most hits after home, suggesting a high need for users to seek out trust signals
• Top performing service was ‘Digital Forensics and Incident Response’ suggesting a need for this to be prioritised, as incident response is a time sensitive matter

Refreshing the digital branding to represent the new 'sister' brand approach

Tasked with unifying the digital presence of two sister brands, I led a branding refresh that balanced both companies’ identities - Cythera's bold green and Bastions trusted blue - into a cohesive digital strategy.

Initially, the brief was to move away from the existing dark-mode sites and introduce a brighter, more accessible brand. Through stakeholder workshops and presentations (including both CEOs), I helped uncover a shared brand direction that respected the heritage of each company while looking forward.

The outcome was a flexible brand system and website design that supported both light and dark modes, driven by user preferences and accessibility best practices. While the project was fast-tracked to prioritise go-live dates, emotional investment from each stakeholder extended the brand exploration phase. I adapted quickly, managing scope creep and navigating conflicting opinions to keep momentum while delivering a digital identity both teams were proud to stand behind.

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Ensuring a clear point of difference by mapping user journey's

I championed a human-led ethos, identified by both companies as a key brand differentiator, and worked closely with content creators to ensure the copy highlighted the real people behind the services.

Competitor benchmarking showed most sites were overly tech-focused and lacked this relatable presence. To balance this, I developed user personas and journeys, including ad-hoc testing with IT users, which informed a site structure that retained technical terms to build trust, showcased partner badges and certifications, and emphasised on-shore support as a key differentiator—positioning the brand as approachable, trustworthy, and user-focused.

Structured services that support a users mental model

One of the key challenges was merging both businesses’ offerings into a single, simplified top level structure. The benchmarking revealed the need to reduce complexity - while the audience was mostly tech-savvy, services still needed to be understandable to those unfamiliar with security jargon.

I restructured the offering into four clear categories, such as "Assess & Improve" and "Advise & Empower", reflecting the natural split between the two businesses. Technical labels like were replaced with language that aligned better with users’ mental models and how they think about securing their business.

Targeting user pain points

I championed a section specifically addressing user pain points, aiming to simplify complex security processes for all users.

The goal was to move away from a long, alphabetical service list, instead focusing on the most common audience challenges in a three-card carousel.

I presented this to the client, with aims to get them to understand how this approach would help their users match their problems with the right service - providing less reliance on understanding complicated service name jargon.

The client agreed, and wanted their top services that produced the most revenue, listed as the first three cards in a carousel. I was able to guide them into thinking more about the user journey - suggesting instead to list services that users enter the business on, targeting those new users that may be experiencing a sercurity breach and need advice, as opposed to a retainer service that created high revenue - but would perhaps not be at the top of the new users mind

Taking charge of the content plan

I went above and beyond in this project, particularly in managing the complex content requirements. With the two companies merging and new services being introduced, content management became one of the biggest challenges.

Our content team was only responsible for 20% of the content, however in order to build the site and insert all content within the time contraints we needed a simple way to collect information from both companies.

To solve this, I created a shared document that clearly outlined the exact content needed for each page. This document was distributed to both companies and then handed directly to our developers, enabling them to import the content efficiently.

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Building hi-fi designs utilising variables

I completed the high-fidelity designs within one week, working closely with the content team to ensure each section could accommodate the exact amount of content needed.

To support the two colour modes, myself and a junior designer built a comprehensive design system in Figma, creating components with multiple variants and setting up detailed variables for colours, typography, and spacing.

I made sure we established clear naming conventions to keep everything organised and consistent, which made it easier to manage and update the design across both themes. This structured approach ensured efficient handoff to developers and maintained design integrity throughout.

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Light-Dark modes

The client wanted a light and dark mode that would match user browser preferences. At first, I suggested holding off to avoid diluting the new brand and confusing users.

But when they decided to go ahead, I took charge of the design system, guiding the junior designer in creating both colour modes. We developed the light mode palette and made sure every element had matching variables for each mode.

The light and dark mode feature was definitely a feature that pushed the dev time up in the project. Although all variables were mapped during the design phase, they weren't always implemented accurately in the build, requiring additional QA to ensure fonts, background colours, and interactions rendered correctly in both modes.

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