Designing for trust
The context
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) places new limits on “gatekeeper” digital platforms like LinkedIn. It is the newest layer of law sitting on top of an already complicated set of earlier regulations as well as court rulings and pending litigation. These laws are incredibly challenging to implement upon a legacy settings infrastructure.
The challenge
The core challenge of this project was the shifting strategy direction as the team balanced a range of legal, business, product, technical, and design priorities and constraints. We iterated on the same experiences and screens dozens of times to account for changes on how best to approach the regulation. The strict deadline meant all of this was happening with a sense of urgency.
Using the right words was essential; we know from past examples that just 2 or 3 words can result in massive fines, or a low consent rate, impacting the member experience and the business.
My role
As the project’s sole Content Designer, my role was multi-faceted across multiple work streams, including consent and settings.
Exploring language. Whether working heads-down to prepare copy variants to share out, or leading a live working session with cross-functional partners, I played with language to push boundaries and generate alternatives. I implemented findings from research and responded to feedback from stakeholders. The team relies on me to drive the creative element here and to suggest pathways and stories they may not have considered. I worked in the open, and I elicited the creativity of partners to arrive at outcomes that work.
Documenting and socializing constraints and rationales. As our understanding of the regulation deepened, as we assembled data points from research, and as decisions got made — it could be easy to lose sight of how this all redounded on the language itself. I became a steward of this critical information. A piece of content guidance uttered in passing in one legal review, for example, may have been forgotten if not documented and acted upon. Stakeholders ramping on to the project may come with a flurry of ideas, and it helps to be prepared with the evidence of all of our past learnings. This also helps debunk unspoken assumptions, which can produce misguided constraints.
Engaging with subject matter experts (SMEs). Working closely with senior SMEs and leaders with greater visibility and responsibility than I have, I understoodd when it was appropriate to defer to their expertise. Learning when to “stay in my lane” is both a science and an art. It involves understanding what is being said and the scope of my own involvement. It also means understanding when my perspective or my questions may bring value to a conversation.
Designing for member trust. While all of us were responsible for acting upon LinkedIn’s Trust principles, cross-functional partners were often relieved that there was an embodied advocate of user experience in the room all the time. While they were busy navigating changing resource constraints, legal ambiguity, and engineering challenges, content design restored a sense of confidence that we were always members-first. At times, I presented a strong POV that challenged the prevailing approach and helped the team reorient to Trust principles.
Helping shape UXR. I worked closely with our UXR partners to develop hypotheses, consider how we might test for them, create mocks, and draft study questions. I continuously drew upon these findings and socialized them with stakeholders.
Partnering with localization. Since the content would be translated into a range of other European languages, it was important to engage with localization partners as they exercise a content design function in their language markets. This took a variety of forms — from regular syncs to design reviews to granular analyses of particular words or phrases.
Impact
In addition to achieving DMA compliance, consent rates are 50 percentage points higher than projected across all operating systems and languages.
