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Contrary to the popular opinion that cybersecurity and UX design don’t go hand in hand, your UX design should be focused on security and data privacy. Both factors play a crucial role in determining the level of trust among your consumers. Each component of your UX design should ensure data privacy and security.
Modern customers leave their details on mobile apps and websites each time they buy a product or service. Brands must handle personal information with integrity and ensure the highest levels of data privacy and security to build trust and loyalty among their consumers.
However, cybersecurity should be part of your UX design to eliminate any data security flaws and allow you to build and maintain strong consumer engagement. Let’s see what you can do to enhance user data security using web design.
1. Reduce cookies and gather fewer consumer data
The best way to improve the data security on your website is to minimize the amount of personal information you gather on your consumers. If possible, anonymize the personal data you use and monitor what data third parties collect. Remember that convenience is an excellent way to improve customer retention and lead generation.
Each point of customer interaction should be easy to find and manage. While it’s true that the more data you gather on your customers, the better the experience, security concerns should come first. Of course, designers should also design clear-cut and transparent cookie notifications, working together with content creators.
For instance, these pop-ups tend to have quite a few dark patterns. These refer to subtle design choices that coerce users into performing actions. In this case, cookie notifications usually aim to convince people to agree with all cookies.
Users frequently notice that the “Agree with all cookies” buttons are usually green. However, those meant for refusing the cookies are generally smaller and might feature colors like red. Knowing that dark patterns diminish users’ experiences on apps and the web, steer clear of them as much as possible.
2. Keep all your information transparent
Modern customers demand to know how you collect and use their data. They should be able to find your data privacy policies quickly and easily on your website. Be transparent about what user actions imply and allow your customers to comply with your data collection and processing practices.
Inform your website visitors of what data you collect and provide an option to withdraw their consent. A top-grade web design would give the visitors all the information on data privacy policies. For instance, some design elements can be used to emphasize specific details on such documents. A more trendy approach would be creating useful infographics or video content.
3. Inform your visitors of cyber threats
Cyber threats like phishing attacks are common. Hackers and cybercriminals use them to impersonate legitimate business organizations via various means to steal sensitive data. UX design can help mitigate the risk of phishing attacks by creating pop-ups that notify visitors in a non-disrupting way to their browsing/user experience.
Web design can also develop team collaboration tools and security forums where visitors may report suspicious behavior and receive the assistance they need when facing any cyber threat.
4. Build customer trust by mitigating frequently breached UX areas
Data security experts and web designers should work together to understand better the customers’ expectations, behaviors, and intentions. They can use a range of collaboration tools to navigate through all UX areas that are most prone to breaches to mitigate all the risks involved.
The best way to put the two together is to integrate data privacy into your web design by default. Your products and services must be safe, easily accessible, and usable. Therefore, you must test them for both security and usability.
After all, many users feel unsafe online, be it due to public Wi-Fi or encryption-lacking websites. Thus, many turn to external tools, like HTTPS Everywhere or Virtual Private Networks. The latter is responsible for encrypting all internet traffic. Additionally, a VPN masks your IP address, preventing websites from learning users’ locations. Deciding to download VPN services is one of the top choices for defending against questionable data harvesting.
Overall, you should start by addressing the most frequently breached UX areas and embedding security measures into the UX design through each step of the life cycle of your products/services.
You can accomplish this by ensuring the following things:
- Usernames are everything but emails to prevent hackers from accessing any system.
- The site’s safety and handling security issues don’t compromise each other.
- Maximum password strength.
- Require two-factor authentication for all financial transactions to secure credit card details and login data.
5. Avoid complexity if possible
Your visitors need to understand your UX design and seamlessly browse your website. Since you must inform them of security risks, make sure you do it in a comprehensive way. Explain what threats they might be facing and how they can mitigate them.
6. Simplify authentication
Security protocols such as captcha, two-step authentication, password remembering, and logging in aren’t user-friendly, and most visitors will look to find a way around them. So, make sure your cybersecurity measures aren’t too time-consuming and tedious.
While you can’t avoid some measures, you can simplify things like sign-ins where minimal user data is gathered and seek alternatives to complex captchas.
7. Inform your visitors of your security measures
Your visitors would feel much safer and more attentive if they knew you had strong security measures. Inform them of your security measures and provide information on the SSL encryption you use. Encourage them to avoid oversharing personal information and provide options for choosing stronger passwords.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that the success of your business depends on your UX design. If it includes any security flaws, your visitors are vulnerable to various cyber threats. It’s possible to develop a user-friendly website that’s easy to navigate without compromising your security. Following these seven steps, you can use web design to improve online safety. In most cases, users or web visitors will appreciate a clear and smooth experience!
