How to Make Privacy Policies both GDPR-Compliant and Usable by Karen Renaud and Lynsay Shephered

A 2018 piece describes some new strategies, using usability-oriented design, to present privacy policies in better ways. Its basic design pattern is a summary table, with icons and some call-out boxes  (along with a trust seal) to present the policy in a brief overview with a link to a fuller policy. It is important for … Read moreHow to Make Privacy Policies both GDPR-Compliant and Usable by Karen Renaud and Lynsay Shephered

Emergency overdose instructions from the Simplification Centre

The Simplification Centre has a group of volunteer designers who do ‘Simple Actions’ to rehabilitate an orphaned, poorly designed piece of information. Their reports document the case studies of these projects and proposed redesigns. This one is about improving people’s ability to deal with an overdose situation and administer lifesaving medicine.

New benefits application from Project Re:form of Civilla

The design group Civilla, in Michigan, has a new legal/government benefits document design, under the banner Project Re:form, Dismantling the longest Public Benefits application in America. They used a service/document design process to create a new application form for public benefits in Michigan. You can see the new form and information booklet here, on Michigan’s website. … Read moreNew benefits application from Project Re:form of Civilla

Law of the Land policy tracker

The Center for American Progress has a policy-tracking/visualization too, Law of the Land Project. It offers an interesting way to show various policies, cases and decisions. The functionality: you can filter the various cases by issue area or legal area. Then the sets of main cases that are tagged with this filter are shown. In addition, they … Read moreLaw of the Land policy tracker

Google’s Security Checkup intervention

Google has a Security Checkup that alerts users, while they are going about use of other applications, to spend time to review access permissions, device logins, and possible threats. It is not about understanding the policy itself so much as managing devices and applications, to cut back on what Google rates as risky behavior. It is a … Read moreGoogle’s Security Checkup intervention

Tunnel Bear: privacy policy with visuals, diagrams, and examples 

The website Tunnel Bear recommends to its users that it hasA Privacy Policy You Can Actually Understand. It is a VPN tool, that allows for mobile, private connections to the internet. Its privacy policy has many design features meant to improve accessibility: accent images to illustrate or diagram the data privacy large headings tables laying … Read moreTunnel Bear: privacy policy with visuals, diagrams, and examples 

YouTube’s terms of service through a jargon-free video explainer

In true YouTube style, a YouTube user has made a straightforward, image-rich explainer video of what the legal document says. It was made by Emily Murphy for a course, and provides a rich set of scenarios and examples along with a rundown of the key clauses.

Google Privacy control dashboard

Google offers its users the ability to see their own search history — what Google is storing of their data and queries. The company gives each person the ability to log in and see what Google sees. Along with this info transparency, there is also the ability to then turn off and purge (but is … Read moreGoogle Privacy control dashboard

Terms & Conditions Change-Tracker

The project Terminos y Condiciones from Mallorca Spain is experimenting with new ways to help people stay on top of the terms and conditions they agree to when they use products online & elsewhere. They’ve built a tool that lets you keep track of any changes in companies’ policies. Here’s an article from TechCrunch that … Read moreTerms & Conditions Change-Tracker

Legal Bill design, how to show what lawyers do and how much it costs

On his blog “the [non]billable hour”, legal consultant Matt Homann challenged law firms to design a more readable, engaging, client-centered bill for legal services. If your clients designed your bills, what would they look like?  Would they be easier to understand?  Contain useful case status information?  How about upcoming dates or milestones?  Would your bills include information about the … Read moreLegal Bill design, how to show what lawyers do and how much it costs

Music video airline disclosure, safety dance on Virgin

This was Virgin Airline’s mandated disclosure, as done as a music video, that I saw on a recent flight to LA. And Behind the Scenes of the video: — From a write-up of the video on marketing blog Digital Synopsis: When was the last time you paid attention to a pre-flight safety demonstration? In the … Read moreMusic video airline disclosure, safety dance on Virgin

Privacyville: Privacy Policy as game for Zynga

Zynga has a game-based privacy policy, PrivacyVille, in which each of the practices is located on a different part of their game town image. You have to click each part of the game to get the different practices. Then, at the end, they give you the chance to play a quiz to confirm you understood.

Aza Raskin’s privacy redesign project

The designer Aza Raskin tackled the design of privacy notifications & policies several years ago. His blog details his (and his co-designers’ and experts’) process to try to make more readable & targeted disclosures that would be meaningful to people. 1.) Making Privacy Policies Not Suck Privacy policies are long legalese documents that obfuscate meaning. … Read moreAza Raskin’s privacy redesign project

Codepen’s Privacy Policy

Codepen has a new privacy policy model, in which it lays out all the terms in a two-column table. On the left hand side is the legalese, and then on the right is the plain English. It’s still all text, but uses hierarchy (categories with bold headers), clean composition (tables with clear demarcations & lots … Read moreCodepen’s Privacy Policy

Privicons project

The Background of the Privicons Project gives a wonderfully resourced summary of their privacy design project. The Project’s Development Recently there have been numerous approaches for simplifying privacy policies by the use of icons. Similar to the Creative Commons project for managing content licenses, some scholars and technologists have suggested privacy policies could be enhanced … Read morePrivicons project

Designing Consumer-Friendly Disclosures for financial decision-making

The Federal Reserve Bulletin published a piece in 2013, summing up new ways to design better consumer understanding & decision-making tools. The article is by Jeanne M. Hogarth and Ellen A. Merry of the Board’s Division of Consumer & Community Affairs. Read the entire article here. The Federal Reserve Board has studied ways to improve … Read moreDesigning Consumer-Friendly Disclosures for financial decision-making

Legal Design Jam takes on Twitter’s privacy policy @ KU Leuven: Report |

LDJ on privacy @ KU Leuven: Report Posted on November 27, 2014 by Stefania Passera In this Jam we brought together designers and legal researchers interested in privacy to reimagine together how privacy policies can be redesigned to be more user-friendly, transparent – and to be actually read by internet users! In our Jam, we … Read moreLegal Design Jam takes on Twitter’s privacy policy @ KU Leuven: Report |

Tumblr makes its TOS funny, inspired, bizarre

Business Insider has a piece by Caroline Moss, from January 2014, in which it profiles Tumblr’s TOS — that are funny, full of easter egg surprises, and with a strong character. I’ll admit, I hardly ever read the Terms of Service for anything. At best, I’ll skim it over. Mostly, I just scroll to the … Read moreTumblr makes its TOS funny, inspired, bizarre

A Nutrition Label for Privacy

A Nutrition Label for Privacy is an academic study by Patrick Kelley, Joanna Bresee, Lorrie Cranor and Robert W. Reeder, from CMU & Microsoft. It profiles a potential way to display legal information to consumers: with a ‘nutrition label’ interface. See more about the Nutrition Label project here. The abstract: We used an iterative design … Read moreA Nutrition Label for Privacy

A Redesigned Parking Sign So Simple That You’ll Never Get Towed

Here is a piece on notice design, A Redesigned Parking Sign So Simple That You’ll Never Get Towed | from Wired Magazine. It’s by Liz Stinson, from 07.15.14 Your car gets towed, and who do you blame? Yourself? God no, you blame that impossibly confusing parking sign. It’s a fair accusation, really. Of all the questionable … Read moreA Redesigned Parking Sign So Simple That You’ll Never Get Towed