21st Feb 2018
How might we...
...explain concepts around data use and value to people
Educating people about how their data is used
Clear illustrations can effectively educate people about data flow and data connections in a step-by-step way.
Product Context
Oink is a fictional challenger bank aimed at a younger market who don't rely on branch-based services. Oink aims to make people’s spending habits more visible and to encourage short and long-term saving. To do this effectively, Oink relies on data gathered by monitoring people's daily purchases, cash movements, and displays suggestions to guide them towards meeting financial goals.
In order to provide the service, Oink is powered by some of the following data:
- Personal data, to create and verify a bank account
- A history of purchases, to make recommendations based on spending patterns and habits
- An API is made available to 3rd parties so they can offer discount services based on spending patterns. APIs expose some of a product or service’s internal functions in a controlled environment. This API requires people to give explicit permission to 3rd parties
Problem & Opportunity
A problem for products that process data is how they should leverage this information, how they explain the consequences of sharing this data, and how they get the suitable level of consent from people. This is especially important in the case of Oink, whose focus is on a younger audience. It's crucial to provide people with a sufficient level of information about the service, a clear understanding of the consequences, and to give them freedom to tailor their level of sharing.
Design Features
Educating people about their data relationships
Utilising the API into Oink, third parties can offer discount services to Oink customers based on their spending patterns. Oink introduces the concept of third party data sharing in three simple steps, using simple visuals to express the data relationships between the person, Oink and third party companies:
- Step 1 - After opting in to explore offers, Oink explains that they will 'analyse your transactions to provide you with customised offers'
- Step 2 - Oink reassures that, 'This doesn't mean that Oink shares your personal transaction data with anyone'
- Step 3 - Oink visualises the relationship between the third party and the person with Oink in the middle, to help explain that, 'Companies will give Oink offers which we pass on if we think they will suit you.' Oink plays a role to ensure people's data is secure and only the best offers reach their customers.
People are then given the choice to accept or decline the functionality, and declining will not stop people from using the service
Design Features
Snoozing or stopping data relationships
After selecting 'Yes, Please' to Offers, Oink gives people the ability to see which brands are interested in them. They can choose to engage with them, block them or snooze for a given period of time. This gives people flexibility and control over how brands can engage with them, and tailor the experience to make it more relevant to them.
This is particularly relevant to young people, who have clear relationships with brands at different stages in their lives, and these relationships change over time.
Next steps
How might we build on Oink's ideas to...
- Explore further the snooze functionality when it comes to giving consent? Consider controls where consent is not just a binary yes/no question that will remain unchanged, but something fluid and changing over time.
- Explore time-based consent - how long to give it for, and when to prompt asking for it again?
