Trust, Privacy & Permission

Who

As a designer on YouTube Ads, I led UX design for a major project involving the release of new privacy features on iOS devices. I worked closely with a writer and researcher to produce recommendations that executives used to make hugely impactful decisions.

What

iOS 14 came with an array of new features, but one in particular has had a major impact on the mobile advertising industry: the requirement to ask permission for data that was previously allowed by default. That data is used by companies to provide personalized recommendations and to charge advertisers for user engagement. This system is what makes most of the internet free.

Apple’s emphasis on user control and data transparency are set to transform this system of targeted advertising.

Challenges

YouTube was faced with a big question: Should we ask for users permission to “track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites” to continue showing and reporting ads the same way we always did? There was a great deal of risk involved in this question – users’ trust, perception, and the ability to show relevant ads were all at stake.

A small group was formed and moved quickly to conduct literature reviews, user research, and concept testing – both in small groups and at scale.

Insights

A few things I learned along this complex journey

• People want control, but most won’t bother with “controls”
• Many of us have “consent-fatigue,” but have different defaults – accept by default or reject by default
• Ideally, permissions should be timed to a smart trigger in the user journey and briefly explain the benefits.
• Re-using existing interface patterns may technically be easier, but carries the weight of how that pattern is usually used. For example, if your app uses a pop-up for promotions and you repurpose it for a systems message, people will still assume its a promotional pop-up.

Achievements

• Quickly read years worth of internal research and external articles on complex subject matter, sharing key insights with my broader team and leadership
• Produced dozens of prototypes and refined a methodology that allowed me and our UX Writer to update prototypes on the fly.
• Conducted analysis with our researcher and shared results to executives across Google
• The research and analysis are still referred to across the company today, with many teams thinking about the future of trust and privacy.

Want more?

Unfortunately I can’t share details of this project, but reach out if you’re interested in learning about some general methodologies, or just want to talk about trust and privacy on the modern web.