The Spamhaus Project is a global nonprofit organisation focused on strengthening trust and safety for the Internet. They advocate for change by sharing reliable intelligence and expertise. Founded back in 1998, utilising its researchers’ expertise and threat intelligence data, Spamhaus educates and supports those who want to effect change and holds to account those who don’t. They collaborate with the wider community, including law enforcement agencies, networks and registries worldwide, to identify and combat malicious behaviour, and have been awarded numerous accolades for their contribution to Internet safety.
Spamhaus.org is a central channel for sharing this information. With a shift to becoming more open and increasing community engagement.
The challenge
The Spamhaus Project embarked on a journey to update an ageing website, but they used this opportunity to strategically shift the website’s emphasis from solely a channel outlining their services to becoming a site to, foster a sense of community, highlight the latest trends and threats, alongside providing statistical information, relating to key service providers. This transition aimed to create a platform where users could access valuable information and actively engage with the organisation, share malicious behaviour, and collaborate in combating cyber threats.
By prioritising community-building, it sought to cement its position as a trusted authority and reinforce its commitment to collective action against cyber threats. Ultimately, Spamhaus.org needed to be updated, made more relevant for its audience, and provide a greater focus on sharing intelligence.
Our approach
The project was divided into two stages. In the initial phase, a stakeholder workshop was conducted to realign the focus of spamhaus.org, define its scope and timelines, and align its purpose and vision. This involved: reviewing objectives, identifying recruitment mechanisms for persona interviews, as well as revising user personas and journeys.
Following this, a user stories workshop refined the actions users should complete on the site, while the information architecture was reviewed and aligned with user stories. Detailed wireframes were created to outline screen layouts and navigation, which were usability tested with six users to gather feedback and recommendations. Finally, the UI design was developed, iterated upon, and incorporated into the overall Spamhaus design system to ensure consistency and alignment.
Outcomes
During the UX process, it was established that the outcome would need to be two websites. The Threat Intel Community was initially launched to gather threat intelligence from the community. Following this, Spamhaus.org was launched, focusing on knowledge sharing.
Quote: “Taking a website that hasn’t been redesigned in over ten years, requires enhanced functionality, and sits close to the hearts of the key stakeholders isn’t an easy task – it took “complex” to a whole new level. Thankfully, Make It Clear came armed with patience, drive, and determination to make this a success.”