Website Design and Deployment to Drive Client Engagement for a Cybersecurity Startup.

Harrison Cyber needed a website that could clearly communicate complex cybersecurity services to a diverse audience ranging from technical experts to non-technical business decision-makers, while also positioning the company as credible and scalable.

The website needed to effectively showcase the company's expertise and build trust with potential clients.

Preliminary desk research revealed that Gen-Z and younger millennials are turning more towards social media for their daily dose of news. A report by Reuters Institute shows the growing trend of social media and decreasing reliance on news apps and websites in recent years.

To validate the problem, I conducted an online survey(n=46) and semi-structured interviews with participants aged 18 to 29 to understand their views about current news apps in the market.

1. Opening news platforms feel like a chore- whereas news on social media is readily available.

2. While information is important, the younger generation is biased towards news from their field(s) of interest.

3. Besides personalization, they want truthful news with facts, not skewed opinions as news.

“HMW create a news experience that combines the convenience of social media with the reliability of news platforms?”- I started my ideation process with this HMW statement. However, I realized this statement was too narrow, and I was designing a social media app for news rather than solving the core user issues and frustrations.

I reframed the statement into three smaller HWM statements that were broad enough to allow multiple solutions but narrow enough to set focus.

1. HMW make news feel less like a chore?

2. HMW create an experience that is personal, relevant and easy?

3. HMW attract attention and build engagement?

I used wireflows to design the structure of the app flow. This helped me refine and establish the Information Architecture and User-flows parallelly, making it easy to design screens layouts, understand user interactions, and make rapid changes to align everything to address user needs.

01. Personalization

Personalization was an important pain-point for users, as they expressed a desire for news that is tailored to their interests and preferences. This insight guided the design process to prioritize personalized content delivery. However, it was important to filter bubble and for users to be exposed to a diverse range of news topics.

To address this, I designed home page with a short today section to help users catch up with latest and important news of the day. Additionally I added sections like Editor's choice and recommended for you sections to provide a well-rounded news experience.

02. Attention and Engagement

To keep users engaged, I incorporated a discussion section where users can comment on articles and share their thoughts. This feature encourages interaction and helps build a community around the news content.

Another strategy was to include a synopsis section that provides quick overview and history of certain topics to help users catch up on important news topics.

03. Verified News

I designed a way for users to know if the news they are reading is verified and factual. I added a fact-checking section that provides users with information about the source of the news, including its credibility and reliability. This feature helps users make informed decisions about the news they consume and promotes transparency in journalism. A green checkmark will indicate if the news is verified, especially for topics and articles that might be controversial or politically charged.

The design of the news app underwent several iterations based on user feedback and testing. I focused on refining the user interface and enhancing the overall user experience. This involved making adjustments to the layout, navigation, and content presentation to better meet user needs. After first user testing session, I kept what users liked like horizontal navigation, card layouts, and the simple navigation. Things that changed include- visual refinements, hiding like/dislike buttons under "options", and moving content from homepage to explore page.

The three environments varied in more ways than I intended — focal points, spatial openness, and aesthetic style all changed at once. If I ran this again, I'd hold those constant and change only one variable at a time.

The involvement finding wasn't in the original analysis plan — it came from poking at the subscale data after the ANOVA came back flat. A confirmatory follow-up should add HRV for an objective signal alongside self-report; based on the effect size here (r≈0.47), that would need roughly 35–40 participants to hit 80% power.