full case study
Balancing usability and security for customer trust
My role
Design Lead
Research, Vision, Content, Strategy
Core partners
1 Principal PM
1 Senior PM
1 Group Tech Lead
12 Engineers
Teams involved
19 Product Teams
Timeline
8 months for Early Access time-to-market
In 2024, Zendesk created the Advanced Customer Data Privacy and Protection add-on to offer enhanced security features for data protection. The Permissions team took on building a brand new capability to mask end user data across the entire product suite. This was a huge effort involving a comprehensive audit of the experience to determine where data shows up, how it's used in each area, and evaluate the effects of masking data.
glossary
Customer
A company/business that has purchased Zendesk
Team members
Admins or agents that deliver customer support to end users.
Role
A role with a set of permissions assigned to each team member
End users
Our customers' customers who submit support requests.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
Any data that can be used to identify a specific individual.
sections
the rise of security threats
In 2021, in the US alone, there were 290M victims of data breaches. HBR identified the exploitations of vendor systems as one of the primary reasons for increased data theft and exploitation.
With the rise of security vulnerabilities across the web, our customers demand more control over their customers' data. Zendesk created the Advanced Customer Data Privacy and Protection to meet the increasing security needs of our customers and their consumers.
a spectrum of markets, structures, and industries to solve for
Companies need robust security solutions depending on varying factors.
We've spoken with companies both at the Enterprise scale and SMB, companies that are headquartered in one region but run global operations, some who outsource their support agents, and those from public sectors like healthcare and government. All were eager to get ahead of protecting sensitive data that are necessary for their whole service.
“
We don't want outsourced agents to see data they don't need to. I had to spend a lot of time to control their access.
– Enterprise customer
advanced data protection
The Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on is an additional level for customers with higher data security and compliance requirements.
Each add-on feature offers flexible solutions for customers. Some give more visibility and control over how data is accessed while some give the ability to either permanently or temporarily remove data from view. Data masking replaces PII with a different value while remaining usable by the system. Zendesk customers totaling over $50M ARR requested basic data masking of PII.
balancing multiple user needs
Data masking affects the end user, admin, and agent experience. The optimal experience balances all user goals while delivering the core value of security.
Quality service and data protection
End users have legal rights the ensure more visibility and control over how their PII is managed by systems. All the while, they still expect speedy support and resolution to their needs.
Reluctance towards workflow changes
Admins are conscious of making changes that potentially break processes that agents rely on. On the other hand, they are accountable for ensuring security obligations are met.
Friction hinders agent productivity
Agents are sensitive to any change that introduces friction to their workflows. Personalization is a key part of customer support and they have concerns over data masking's effect on that.
cx ecosystem
Defining a profitable mvp
There are several data masking techniques we could implement, but we first needed to figure out what would bring the most value to our key customers. I led a series of interviews with Admins to identify what criteria we should prioritize when evaluating masking solutions, and help unmoderated test for Agents to
While the team had hashing as their initial preferred solution, I thought it would add more cognitive load for agents. I did a wide exploration generating other options that offer more affordance while remaining secure. I then curated mixed methods research that capture both the Admin and Agent sentiments through interview and multivariate testing.
Out of all the options, content replace and the unique ID were the most favored by participants. I created a decision matrix to help frame these options against feasibility and clarity. The team was able to align on content replacement as the chosen solution.
evaluation framework
Basic PII masking
End user name, phone, and email were the most common requested PII from our customers.
Coverage is table-stakes
The team considered only covering a small area of the interface. Research proved this would lead to negative sentiments on security.
Clarity is top priority
When it comes to masking pattern, customers gravitate towards options that would cause the least confusion for agents.
More control to address friction
To mitigate the friction masking will introduce, both Admins and Agents seek actions that can navigate around data they can't access (ex. Request access in-situ)
aligning 19 teams with design principles and a vision
I turned the research insights to design principles to frame discussions with the partner teams. Having clear direction and rationale helped teams to understand the project goals, and gave us a shared set of criteria for product and design decisions we aligned on.
data masking vision
Deliver seamless data masking that protects Customer information without compromising Admin trust and Agent usability.
design principles
Security foremost
Compliance is the deciding factor for direction
Customer peace of mind
Customers should feel safe and in control of their data
Control
Admins should always feel in control of their instance
Confidence
Admins should understand what goes on in their instance
Clarity
Agents should understand what data is masked, how, and by whom.
Accessible and readable masking
Masked content should remain cognitively accessible for Agents
key masking solution
I applied the aforementioned principles to refine the content replacement option as the solution. I also ensured the masking pattern would lead to a consistent experience across 5 product areas. The final masking system allowed for minimal variance while maintaining the easy understand content structure: {{field name}} hidden
masking system
consistency across 5 product areas
content strategy
early access results
The early access pattern included key experience decisions and the hashing pattern. We confirmed we're headed in the right direction and gathered strong evidence that clarity is extremely valuable to our customers. Insights solidified rationale for the content replacement pattern and eased concerns from development teams.
early feature adoption
overall additional arr
win rate
reflections
In total, I partnered with 19 dependent product teams across the organization to propose solutions and coordinate implementation specs. Working with each team involved quickly learning nuances in their respective parts of the experience and adapting the solution accordingly. Coordinating and collaborating with all the stakeholders across teams and timezones was the most challenging part of this project. Attention to detail and agility were vital in the smooth progress of delivering our early access milestone.
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