Westpac is one of New Zealand’s largest banks. Their Website is an important part of their digital presence, providing a gateway to online banking, sales and marketing information about their products, and pathways for applying for accounts, cards and other services.
I worked with Westpac for over 3 years. I led the redesign and development of their website in 2020/21 and then continued to work with them to maintain and improve their website.
This was my first big project as design lead. As a junior designer, it was a massive opportunity, and being thrown into the deep end was a great way to learn. I was able to build a great working relationship with the team at Westpac, who had full trust in me and my designs. I continued working with Westpac for over 3 years.
Westpac
Design Lead
My role included UX/UI (creating the website design system, recommended IA, and all page templates).
2020-2023
The project began in Feb 2020 and the website was launched in 2021. Since launch there has been an ongoing relationship with the Westpac team, and we have continued to add new features and update branding.
Silverstripe (Agency)
Silverstripe delivery team; Westpac team (product owner, product manager, business analysts, product designer, brand team and stakeholders)
The Westpac website has hundreds of pages. Designing an enterprise website requires a specific approach. Most of the website is created using 3 main page templates, plus content blocks.
Content blocks are small, templated sections of a page that can be reordered and used on different pages. This gave the Westpac content team the flexibility to create bespoke layouts for each page keeping the site both fresh and consistent. It also makes sure that the website is future proofed, so that content can evolve to meet customer needs over time.
This was an enterprise-scale website with hundreds of pages. At the beginning of the design process, I set up solid foundations in the form of a design system. I used a version of Atomic Design starting with Atoms (colours, typography, icons) and then adding Molecules (tiles, form fields) and Organisms (blocks and templates).
Using this system made it quick and easy to design new features and make global changes across the website. It ensured there was consistency across the whole website.
The internal Westpac product team (who work on Westpac’s apps), used the Website Design system to influence the updated design system they created for the rest of Westpac’s Products.
Westpac went through a brand refresh in 2021. This posed a new challenge, the website had recently been launched, so it was important to ensure the we built upon the foundations that had already been built.
How might we create a cohesive brand experience throughout Westpac website?
The design system made the process of re-branding very smooth. My approach was to redesign the hero banners which had the most visual impact, then update the Atoms (colours, typography and spacing), so that the whole website felt fresh and cohesive whilst working within a short timeframe (for both design and development).
