Computershare (Digital Foundry)

Digital Foundry is Computershare's cross-functional innovation team, around 40 specialists including IT engineers, information architects, UX designers, and delivery leaders, all working to pioneer digital products that improve the company's services. Despite the impact of their work, most of the Computershare community had no idea they existed. The brief was clear: build a website that answered the four questions every internal stakeholder was asking, what is Digital Foundry, what do they do, who are they, and what have they built? The UI had to feel professional and innovative, aligned with Computershare's brand, and capable of communicating complex work with clarity and confidence. The additional constraint: deliver it in four weeks, with content still being produced, a team mid-pandemic, and photography access severely limited.

Before opening Figma, I mapped out the full picture in Miro, user analysis, sitemap, and page layout planning. This groundwork was non-negotiable. Designing without a clear content architecture for a site like this would have meant expensive rework later, especially given the tight deadline. One of the core UX decisions made early was around scalability. The site needed to function like a lightweight CMS, allowing the website administrator to upload and manage content without touching a single line of code. This shaped every module and section I designed from the start, ensuring the system could grow with the team long after launch.

The visual language was anchored in Computershare's brand manual, but refined to reflect the innovative and forward-thinking nature of Digital Foundry specifically. Style guidelines were established early, covering colour, typography, spacing, and component behaviour, to ensure every screen felt cohesive and every design decision could be justified. Working closely with the developer, I defined the component library and module set that would make the build viable within the deadline. This required pragmatic decisions, knowing when to simplify a component to keep delivery on track, without compromising the integrity of the design. That balance between ambition and feasibility is where senior UI work lives.

The final product was a fully responsive, high-fidelity prototype, compatible with mobile and tablet from day one, that landed with strong endorsement from Digital Foundry's leaders and team members. The design achieved what it set out to do: make Digital Foundry visible, credible, and easy to understand for the broader Computershare community. Delivered on time, under pressure, and built to scale.