UX System & Interface Designer for Cyber Security Software: designing interfaces so secure, even your password is jealous!
Saas Enterprise
Background
As a UX Designer, I was tasked with designing the interface and system for an Access Rights Management Software used by enterprise organizations. The software needed to provide a seamless experience for managing and controlling access to sensitive data and systems, ensuring that permissions were granted based on roles, responsibilities, and specific user needs. The system had to be highly secure, user-friendly, and adaptable to various organizational structures across different regions.
Responsibilities
- Lead design efforts for the Access Rights Management Software, ensuring that the interface was intuitive, visually appealing, and aligned with security and usability standards.
- Facilitate workshops with international teams to gather insights, define user requirements, and iterate on design solutions. The workshops included internal stakeholders, security experts, and developers.
- Collaborate with an international, large cross-functional team to ensure that design decisions were aligned with technical constraints, regulatory compliance, and the user needs from diverse regions.
- Develop wireframes, user flows, and high-fidelity mockups to guide the development of the software, ensuring clarity and consistency in the user interface.
- Create and maintain design systems to ensure uniformity across the software and help the development team maintain consistency in UI elements.
Challenges
- Complex security requirements: The software needed to balance ease of use with highly secure access controls, which made it difficult to design intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that didn’t compromise on security.
- Managing diverse user groups: The system needed to accommodate a wide range of users, from IT administrators to non-technical business users, making it essential to design interfaces that were adaptable and easy to use for everyone.
- Internationalization and localization: Working with a large international team, the software had to be adaptable to multiple languages, accounting for different cultural preferences and regulatory requirements in various regions.
- Stakeholder alignment: With a large team and many stakeholders, ensuring alignment across different departments, regions, and user groups was challenging. It required continuous communication and iteration to ensure everyone’s needs were met while adhering to timelines.
Solutions
- User-centric design approach: I prioritized understanding user personas and their needs through extensive workshops and user research. This helped in creating intuitive user flows that reduced friction for administrators and business users while ensuring security requirements were met.
- Iterative design process: Using iterative prototyping, I worked with the development team to test designs in real-world scenarios and refine them based on feedback. This helped address issues early in the design process and ensured that the software remained usable.
- Customizable access controls: I designed flexible access management features that allowed organizations to customize roles, permissions, and workflows based on their specific needs. This flexibility allowed the software to be adaptable across different industries and regions.
- Localization and scalability: To accommodate international users, I worked with the development team to create a scalable design system that could be easily localized for different languages and regulatory requirements. I ensured that UI elements were adaptable to different scripts and cultural preferences.
- Stakeholder workshops: Through a series of workshops, I facilitated discussions with stakeholders from various departments and regions to gather requirements, clarify design decisions, and ensure the final product aligned with everyone’s expectations.
By addressing these challenges with a user-centered design process and collaborating closely with an international team, we delivered an access rights management system that met high security standards while being intuitive and adaptable for users around the world.