Co-designing an insights-led digital experience to protect New Zealanders against cyber crime

Online security and cyber crime are a significant global challenge, one that continues to escalate in scale and sophistication.

In New Zealand, CERT NZ works alongside the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) to help people better understand and reduce online security risks.

Our partnership with CERT NZ has focused on developing a digital experience (website and tools) to raise awareness and educate people on how to protect themselves against growing online threats, by helping them better understand cyber security, learn why it’s important, identify the risks, and learn how to get better protected online.

The vision from CERT NZ was very clear from the outset; deliver an engaging website that contributes to their 4-year programme focused on uplifting, educating and empowering New Zealanders to take ownership of their personal online safety.  

The website needed to allow everyday people and small-businesses to identify threats, respond to incidents, and become better prepared; and do all this in a way that felt supportive and achievable, and not overly technical or intimidating - no matter who you are!

Designing first for underrepresented communities was essential for the success of this new website and ensuring inclusive learning for all New Zealanders.

We ran co-design workshops with members of the Māori, Pasifika, disabled and senior communities, as well as small-business owners. Through their stories, we were able to understand how to best help them in their own learning journeys, and in strengthening their whanau and business defences against online threats.

As a result of these co-design workshops, we gathered valuable insights that allowed us to build and test early concepts, then move them into reality with confidence. We worked closely with several partners including All is for All, ECG, ATA and Age Concern NZ, to ensure we engaged with each audience group appropriately and in ways that were meaningful, supportive and genuine.

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We identified that the key to the success of the Own Your Online website was the need to provide intentional resources that could be used in real time to help people, especially in times of need.  

We explored and tested several designs, and two tool concepts; Scam Check and the Online Security Action Plan. Both tools received a lot of positive feedback as well as useful builds from our co-design sessions.  

After several rounds of UX and UI design, user testing and iterations we delivered high-fidelity UI designs as final deliverables, ready to build.