Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/why-should-we-care-about-privacy-in-ux-f8e83eb2a6a7?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Julia Itani 
<h4>Privacy Policies: Too long, didn’t read (TL;DR)</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*tPknkBIz4fCJS5T7.">“Woman with long hair covered with a blue blindfold in Scarborough” by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@oscartothekeys?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Oscar Keys</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a>
Everyone’s getting flooded with emails with updated privacy policies. That’s because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the new rule giving European Union users more control over their personal data, US companies will have to comply if they have EU users. For businesses, the regulation has made new foes. But from a user point of view, well… it’s not making new friends just YET. And here’s why.
<h4>When was the last time you read any Privacy Policy?</h4>
<ol>
<li>When was the last time you looked for a privacy policy, say Twitter’s?</li>
<li>How easy or difficult was it to find it?</li>
<li>How many lines did you read?</li>
<li>And, where’s the cool privacy shortcut on the app that plays a narrative, video, or cute animations, just like the rest of the product is designed for a great user experience?</li>
</ol>
Most user don’t read privacy policies and so we don’t know what is being done with our data, and by implicitly consenting our data we let it exposed to risks.
<h4>As users, why should we care?</h4>
To name a few recent reasons:
<ol>
<li>Facebook and Target.com are a few examples of companies that won’t let you delete your account.</li>
<li>Cambridge Analytica used your <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html">data without your permission to steer elections</a>.</li>
<li>Equifax, MyFitnessPal, Instagram, Twitter, Panera Bread, MySpace, Yahoo, Slack, LinkedIn, and many more… all got hacked. (<a href="http://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/">World’s Biggest Data Breaches</a>)</li>
</ol>
If we can’t choose to not share personal data, or opt-out on what can be shared with third-parties, or even delete our account, we don’t have much control (if any) on our personal data and where it’s going to end up.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*3ckJXx7x5IcMnznb.">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@patrykgradyscom?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Patryk Grądys</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a>
<h4>European users will have more control</h4>
With the GDPR, EU users will have a lot more control over their personal data by having the ability to:
<ol>
<li>Choose to opt-in to share their personal data, one by one, in which they can opt-out any time.</li>
<li>Access to their personal data being stored: what exactly is being stored, how’s it being used, where, how long will it be kept, where was it collected from (you or another source).</li>
<li>Delete their data (“right of erasure”).</li>
<li>Right to know when their data has been hacked.</li>
</ol>
By gaining more control over what personal data is stored, you can make sure what you want or not to be made public. And that’s where Privacy Policies come in although, today, they only tell you as far as what is collected from you.
<h4>Privacy as part of product design</h4>
Change isn’t easy. Our brain tells us change is hard. It’s out of routine so it needs to spend an additional amount of calories and energy. Change requires effort and it takes time. But we’re always experiencing change. Design is always evolving. Innovation certainly didn’t come from business-as-usual. And Privacy can certainly become part of a product’s design. It’s a design challenge.
<blockquote>“ GDPR is a design challenge: creating better, clearer interfaces that make navigating pricacy easier for users”</blockquote>
“<a href="https://www.fastcodesign.com/90171699/what-is-gdpr-and-why-should-designers-care">What is GDPR, and why should designers care</a>?” FastCompany
<h3>How can Privacy can be part of product design?</h3>
<h4>Here are some ideas.</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*PdTh_T8jiqcMA0A_.">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kellysikkema?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Kelly Sikkema</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a>
Let users test-drive your product. Stop asking users to create an account before letting them try your app. Give them a little taste, have them experience the cool things it can do. After trial period is over then ask them to create an account.
Only ask what you need. During onboarding walk them through why you need a certain data, and what controls they’ll have over their data. Give them the choice to “Skip” sharing that data and let them know they can update their preferences at any time.
Don’t have them hunting for it. Add enable/disable “Sharing” toggles, in context, whether next to each information in their profile page, news feed, etc.
Help them set up their security with login options. Either with periodical password updates, one-time links to email, multi-factor authentication, or any cool new feature to authenticate.
Remind users of what you’re doing for them, and often. Let them know hat you’re doing to improve the security of their data. But don’t just use boring privacy policies. Use narratives, videos.
Check-in once in a while. If a user hasn’t been active for over a certain period of time, check in with the user. Send them an email… “We haven’t seen you in a while.”
Keep your database lean and avoid the worst-case-scenario hack. Check in with users to see if they’d still like to use your product. If they say no, offer them a chance to close the account. And purge your database.
Let them delete their accounts. It doesn’t mean they will never use your product again but just not for now. They can always re-create their account When they delete their account, let them know how long until it is permanently deleted, and what exactly is kept.
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<a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/why-should-we-care-about-privacy-in-ux-f8e83eb2a6a7">Why should we care about privacy in UX?</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">Prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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