Enthusiastic consent

When I was speaking at a Mind The Product event in London — way back when you could travel — I shared a little about our work on operationalising ethics.

It was a brilliant event filled with great conversation.

One of the points raised by another presenter focused on the pitfalls of digital consent. Specifically, the idea that consent should be “enthusiastic”. Today it clearly isn’t. The speaker actually used the example of an intimate relationships to highlight this point.

In this context, consent can’t be half assed. It can’t be one sided. It has to be mutual, expressed and enthusiastic.

This topic came up on a call earlier today. I actually used the metaphor from Product Tank back in early 2019. And that discussion prompted this post.

The purpose of this content is simple:

1. Get clear on what consent can and should be
2. Get clear on how to design experiences that align to what consent can and should be, and
3. Help you walk away with actionable guidance

Ideally you take this into the work you do tomorrow.

What is consent?

We’ve written about this pretty extensively in the past. If you wanna dive deep, click here.

In essence, consent is a legal fiction. It’s similar in many jurisdictions. In the context of consent to process personal data, the basic premise is that:

1. An organisation actually does the work to define the data processing purpose, limit processing to that purpose, design a value proposition around that purpose etc.
2. In the context of a person making a decision (i.e. considering optional personalisation features in a product or service they already use), the organisation displays specific information to help the individual appropriate value, understand how they’re protected and make an active choice
3. The person makes a choice, and
4. The choice impacts what happens next (the personal also gets to change their mind whenever they like)

Sounds kinda simple. That’s because I’ve grossly oversimplified it for the purpose of brevity. Again, for a deeper dive, click here.

For the most part, my work has focused on digital consent. The type of scenario described above about sums it up.

The problem is, most consent is BS. Here’s a great example every single one of us can empathise with.

Most ‘consent’ is manipulative. Most consent is designed to favour the organisation. Most consent experiences are designed based on fear. Specifically, the fear of the organisation missing out on the data they think they need.

This is a problem.

Consent — although potentially flawed in many ways — can and should be a more empowering experience for individuals.

So, how do we overcome the failures of yesterday, today?

Start with the consumer outcome

We’ve worked on this issue extensively. Misaligned incentives structures plague markets. They incentivise shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy often leads to inequitable outcomes. When shareholders are the be all and end all (again, keeping it simple. This is actually complex and nuanced) it’s very hard for organisations to design for the qualities of trustworthiness.

Consent faces the same issue.

In my experience, consent UX is almost always optimised for a positive (organisations view) affirmative action. In simple terms, the people asked to consent actually click the button that says, “Yes” or “I consent”.

When this is the prioritised outcome, when this it the metric that matters most, stuff breaks down. Manipulative design reigns supreme. Friction is the enemy. People are verifiably uniformed. Consent is invalid.

To fix this, consent designers need to focus on the consumer outcomes that matter most. Specifically (yet no exhaustively):

1. Comprehension
2. Time to Comprehension, and
3. Propensity to willingly Share

The idea is that the design pattern enhances comprehension. It also decreasing time to comprehension. Yes, this is hard. As a result of this (and nailing the value prop), people that are asked to consent are really happy to willingly do so.

If they do, great! They get the additional thing they’re offered. If not, no problems. They move on without detriment.

Here’s an overview of how to kick off a process that enables you to achieve this.

Empiricism matters, a lot

A lot of consent experiences are never tested. They’re certainly not tested in the context of the outcomes I’ve communicated above. This is an immediate opportunity for gain. It’s the single best way to enhance the quality of your consent UX. It’s the easiest way to build a case for the skeptics internally. Don’t lead with doing good, even if that’s what motivated you. Lead with some data that demonstrates a better way forward. This way you can overcome most of the push back before it’s even communicated.

The above video will give you an idea of how to engage in parts of this process. If you’d prefer to read a little about how this type of stuff works, here’s an article I wrote for UX PA Magazine.

Optimise for overwhelming support

Too many of our corporate activities today are barely acceptable. Some are just plain old shit. We’re optimising for what we can get away with. Instead — and a rather controversial thought indeed — wouldn't it be great if we optimised for what our key stakeholders absolutely loved?

Yes is the answer you’re looking for. It would be bloody great.

You can begin moving towards a tomorrow like this by conducting social preferability experiments.

This simple process will give you access to new empirical data. It’ll help you optimise your outputs for outcomes that your key stakeholders (especially your customers) overwhelmingly support. This is how you start working towards enthusiastic consent.

It can be done. It probably should be done. but it can only be done if you and those around you start taking positive steps today.

So, to recap quickly:

1. Develop a clear view of how you do things today. If you could do better, get ready to roll up your sleeves
2. Prioritise designing for consumer outcome focused metrics
3. Test and refine what you’ve designed
4. Keep focused on validating that your consent UX is something your customers enthusiastically support
5. Push this process to other areas of your business. Consent isn’t the only place where doing better might do good

If you wanna work through this with some folks that have done it across industries and geographies, check out our 10x Better series.

Until next time.