Creating Modular Privacy Options in an Enterprise Product Solution

As a B2B platform, Outside Voice clients are the insights and marketing teams of large consumer enterprises or research agencies who have been tasked with understanding consumer sentiment, trends and experiences.

For the Design Jam workshop and prototype, the Outside Voice team developed the persona of Vivien, an insights manager from a research company working with FMCGs. In his role, Vivien is looking for new ways to gather consumer feedback, quickly and easily. He sees the value of connecting directly with consumers and wants the rich insights that can be gained from video responses; however, he is well aware of data regulations and very concerned about complying with GDPR and avoiding personally identifiable information.

Outside Voice had experienced the loss of a potentially large and lucrative client because they were not able to answer and assuage the client’s questions and concerns around how they managed consent and personal information.

The Outside Voice team needed to know more about the regulations and to ensure that not only that they met them, but that they could make their clients confident that when they built a survey on Outside Voice they and their participants were not being exposed to privacy harms.

The design challenge (created during Design Jam)

From the workshop, the Outside Voice team developed the challenge of ensuring that when an insights manager built a survey on Outside Voice they can be confident that participants have clearly articulated their consent and are protected from any unintended consequences.

The conversation in the workshop focussed on how informed participants were of how and where their data and responses were being used and stored. While one of the key differentiators for Outside Voice is that the survey builder is simple and content is controlled by the client, it also means that there is no consistency in what participants see and limited information about the enterprise deploying the survey, who will see their responses and what they will be used for.

The challenge the team set as a result was to draw the line between the confidence of the insights manager that regulations and privacy were being managed and the trust and transparency the participants would have in responding to surveys.

The data being used

Outside Voice captures from participants via Whatsapp:

• Name
• Selfie photograph
• Self-recorded videos
• Self-recorded audio

Enterprises receive:

• aggregated data and analysis

Survey Builder Blocks with Privacy Baked-in

The survey builder now includes an introduction paragraph that the enterprises must customise and define using pull-down menus. This introduction ensures that enterprises share who they are, the purpose of the survey, the type of data being collected, who will hold the data and how long it will be retained for. For participants it offers greater transparency as in all surveys it is now clear who they are sharing their responses with and how they will be used.

No, Please, Necessary

Enterprises are given the opportunity to define if they want to request participants to be identifiable. As part of the survey builder, enterprises select and confirm whether they do not want participant phone numbers, they’d like participants to have the option to provide phone numbers, or they’d like to make the provision of phone numbers a prerequisite for participants to accept before participating. This gives both enterprise clients and participants greater control and clarity of the information they gather or share.

Let me be sure

Participants are given opportunities both during and after the survey to manage their responses. Within a survey, participants can review and edit their responses and even have the option of revoking their response after submitting the survey (with the clarity that any incentive would also be revoked if they do so). This gives participants control and management of the information they share and gives enterprises confidence that the participant has consented to share the information.

Prototype screens

A privacy and consent introduction paragraph requires enterprises to build into every survey information about who they are, the purpose of the survey, the type of data being collected, who will hold the data and how long it will be retained for.

Enterprises must define how much information they require from the participant. They select and confirm whether they do not require participant phone numbers, they’d like participants to have the option to provide phone numbers, or they’d like to make sharing phone numbers a prerequisite for participation.

Throughout their survey responses, participants have the opportunity to review and edit each response. They also have the option to revoke their responses after submission (with the clarity that any incentive will also be revoked if they do so).