You want to create a frictionless experience for your website’s visitors. You want to make it easy for them to access the information, products or features that matter to them. You want an intuitive experience that creates positive associations with your brand. Investing in your website’s UX is its own reward. But could it actually make your website more secure? Here we’ll look at how good UX leads to better “security by design” and build trust as well as identifying some common risks and vulnerabilities.

What is UX?

UX or User Experience is a web design discipline concerned with how users engage with a website or software app. Good UX should be baked into the crust of effective Information Architecture and there are a number of ways in which it can be implemented in the design process. Card sorting and UX tend to go very well together in building architectures with good UX. Good UX is beneficial in all sorts of ways. Not only does it create a positive and frictionless experience for the user, it can also lead to increased conversions and drive sales. It helps ensure more meaningful engagement with your websites in ways that search engines value so it can even improve your SEO. 

What’s the connection between UX and security?

We’ve looked at some of the inherent benefits of good UX design, but how does good UX help to make your website more secure? A recent Information Security Breaches Survey revealed that 80% of security breaches came from human error. It also found that employees made mistakes on mobile devices in 82% of large organisations that experienced data breaches.

In their zeal to create a user experience that’s free of unnecessary steps that keeps users immersed in the site’s content and doesn’t slow them down, they can inadvertently find themselves overlooking potential security concerns and creating risks. 

Good UX is supposed to build trust in the business and the brand, but without robust security considerations, it can do exactly the opposite. 

Identifying risk

Whenever users connect to a network, they open themselves up to security risks. If your website processes or allows access to financial information such as identity information or credit card data, if you’re using old site code, if you are creating content that could be viewed as disputable, or even if you outsource your IT it can increase your vulnerability.

When it comes to security and UX some of the most specific points of concern are;

  • Creating a new account or logging into an existing account
  • The filling out of contact forms
  • Loading pages which use dynamic content
  • Searching for a product or location 
  • Adding items to and checking out with a shopping cart

How can you keep your users safe?

Users can get skittish whenever it comes to security so it’s up to you to build reassurances into your UX. Help them understand your precautions without scaring them. While you may be keen to remove steps to make the experience smoother and more frictionless, don’t worry unduly about adding security steps to UX. If users know that they’re going to make the experience more secure, they’ll be happy to take them.