Cyber-Duck is a digital transformation agency founded in 2005 and based in Elstree,

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. The company specialises in user experience (UX), software development and digital optimisation. The company employs over 90 staff in the UK and Europe. It works with clients from the financial, pharmaceutical, sport, motoring and security sectors, among others. These include the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, GOV.UK Verify partner CitizenSafe, The

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an International organization, international association of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 56 member states, the vast majo ...

and

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded partners, ...

History

Cyber-Duck was founded in 2005 by Danny Bluestone in his flat in

Mill Hill Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross, close to the Hertfordshire border. It was in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it b ...

, United Kingdom. After a few months, the firm moved into its first office in

Borehamwood Borehamwood (, historically also Boreham Wood) is a town in southern Hertfordshire, England, from Charing Cross. Borehamwood has a population of 36,322, and is within the London commuter belt. The town's film and TV studios are commonly know ...

. Projects with Ogilvy, London Creative and Wisteria followed before Cyber-Duck moved to offices in Devonshire House, Borehamwood. In 2010, the firm was commissioned to develop a website for the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

in the UK. In 2011, the company moved to a self-contained premises in Elstree, Hertfordshire. Shortly afterward, Cyber-Duck was listed on the

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

Technology Fast 500 EMEA in recognition of its substantial revenue growth over the previous five years. As the company grew, its expertise also broadened. This resulted in guest spots on several television shows. Cyber-Duck was featured in an episode of the Gadget Show in 2011, and Chief Production Officer Matt Gibson appeared on BBC Watchdog in 2013 to assist in researching websites and their checkout processes. The firm continued to attract business from companies in London, so the decision was made to open a new office in central London. The Farringdon office opened in 2015, and was followed by a rebrand. In 2016, Cyber-Duck went on to work with the Bank of England. Ahead of the launch of the new polymer £5 note, featuring

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

, the company was tasked with creating a user-friendly website to showcase the new banknote and promote public awareness. The success of the campaign led to further commissions, including 2017's website the New Ten and a redesign of the Bank of England's main website. The firm underwent significant growth in 2020, beginning working partnerships with

and the College of Policing. During this time they also launched

DevOps DevOps is the integration and automation of the software development and information technology operations. DevOps encompasses necessary tasks of software development and can lead to shortening development time and improving the development life ...

as a new service. In 2022, the Farringdon office closed and was relocated to a new office space in

Holborn Holborn ( or ), an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon Without i ...

. The

Laravel Laravel is a open-source software, free and open-source PHP-based web framework for building web applications. It was created by Taylor Otwell and intended for the development of web applications following the model–view–controller (MVC) ar ...

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...

and DevOps teams expanded, and Cyber-Duck became the lead Digital Agency for Worcester, Bosch Group. Several members of the team appeared on The Digital Society on

Sky UK Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), Trade name, trading as Sky, is a British broadcasting, broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone ...

Awards and accreditations

Cyber-Duck is known for its focus on process accreditation as a driver of creativity. In 2011, the company obtained its first ISO 9241 accreditation in Human Centred Design for interactive systems. Two years later, Cyber-Duck obtained a further certification, the ISO 9001 for Quality Management Systems. It acquired another certification in 2016 with the ISO 27001 – the focus of this accreditation was Information Security Management. In 2022, Cyber-Duck gained the ISO 14001 certification in Environmental Management. Cyber-Duck's digital products have won numerous Wirehive 100, BIMA and Webby awards. Notably, the company's UX Companion, a free

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android app that is a glossary of UX theories, featured in Usability Geek and

Smashing Magazine ''Smashing Magazine'' is an online publication primarily catering to web developers and web designers worldwide. Launched in 2006 by Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman, both then part of the German-based Smashing Media AG, the magazine focuse ...

. In 2021 they were awarded as one of the UK's 100 Best Small Companies to work for, and BIMA10 shortlisted for their work with Sport England and This Girl Can.{{Cite news, url=https://bima.co.uk/bima10-finalist-sport-england-this-girl-can-by-cyber-duck/, title=BIMA10 Awards Finalist – Sport England, This Girl Can by Cyber-Duck, work=BIMA, access-date=2021-10-12, language=en-US

References

Companies based in Hertsmere Digital media Marketing companies established in 2005