Capture the Flag

Trellix HAX

 

Role

UX/UI Designer
Research, Design

Time Frame

Two Weeks

Company

Trellix

Every year the Trellix Advanced Research Center's Vulnerability Research Team hosts a Capture the Flag competition, a team-based hacking challenge. This year's theme was a nuclear war-devastated U.S., where the only hospitable areas remaining are on the east and west coasts. The coasts are now in conflict over the remaining infrastructure and resources, with skirmishes waged in cyberspace. Teams participating in the competition select which coast they want to represent and their points will contribute to that side's total, with a winner of the civil war declared in addition to the winning teams at the conclusion. My role was to create a design that would both delight the stakeholders and attract and compel competitors all while creating an intuitive and accessible experience.

 

High-level goals:

  • Meet site requirements provided by stakeholders

  • Curate designs based on game challenges

  • Stay on-brand within Trellix guidelines

  • Increase participation

Problem:

How might we provide players with easy-to-understand and compelling designs all while meeting the design site requirements.

Audience:

Anyone wanting to learn basic hacking skills

Research

 

To help brainstorm, I investigated other post-apocalyptic games, stories, and movies to answer some of the following questions:

  • What would a post-apocalyptic world look like?

  • What technology would be available?

  • How would the available technology be used?

Branding and Logo

I wanted to inspire people to play a game with dark undertones and have fun doing it all while holding true to the Trellix Brand Guidelines.

 

I utilized a few of the Trellix Brand colors and incorporated them into a new HAX logo with a graffiti-like appearance.

Final Prototype

 

Outcomes and results

 

The Trellix HAX Capture the Flag event was deemed a huge success. There was record turnout for this event with 1467 users and 175 teams representing a 5x increase in particiaption compared to 2022. This growth also translated to Trellix’s outreach via the Discord server, which reached over 500 members at it’s peak.