Salus is a service that collects and manages artifacts of a user’s online presence and empowers people to take control of their digital privacy.

Brief

It is difficult for people to track and change their online presence, which can be detrimental to their privacy. Create a service that will tackle this issue

Delivered

Primary & Secondary Research, Iteration sketches, Storyboards, System Diagrams, Animated Prototype, Video

Tools

Sketch, Adobe XD, Principle, Adobe Illustrator, Keynote, LucidCharts

Project type

• 2 with Tia Huang. 
• 4 weeks
• Equally involved in all tasks except for storyboards (Tia) and animations (Me)

Protect

Salus will inform you if one of your accounts has had a potential breach and allows you to protect your account by enabling 2 factor authentication and generating a secure password.

Freeze

Salus lets you put your account on ice by temporarily disabling the account so that it cannot be accessed or seen online for a temporary period in case you need to freeze an account without completely deleting it.

Destroy

Boom! Completely destroy your account with all its data in case it is in immediate danger of a data breach or if you just don't want it anymore.

Problem Statement

It is difficult for people to track and change their online presence, which can be detrimental to their privacy.

Opportunity Areas

• Digital Privacy
• Online Identity Management
• Spam Control

Brief

"How might we make it easier for people to manage their online privacy to protect them from compromising personal situations?"

Target Market

People from 18 to 30 years old who grew up in the digital age and are entering the professional environment.

Research

Interview with target demographic

"My parents embarrassed me by sending old information of me online to me and said I would never be employed with that stuff floating around publicly. Then I had to file a copyright infringement claim against 3rd party companies who use Instagram's API."

"Someone used my Xbox Live credentials to purchase a game. I was unaware of the purchase until the game automatically downloaded onto my console, I contacted Microsoft support and had my account secured and purchase refunded."

"I was threatened by a bot claiming to have my passwords, but afraid nothing came of it."

Discoveries

1. Most people keep track of their accounts, however only 1/3 of people keep track of all the subscription services they have.

2. 43% of people are unaware if they've ever been a part of a data breach

3. Photos are the most problematic posts to manage

Expert interview with Brandon Harris

Brandon Harris works in InfoSec and was a designer at Wikipedia, he is focused on privacy and security.

1. "There is no perfect protection from being hacked. If someone wants to get to you they will."

2. GDPR is effective, but people who respect it are already using it. The services that don't respect have no obligation to use it because it only applies to Europe.

3. Masking the user's identity before they are exposed so they are easier to take down is a more effective strategy. Preventative rather than reactionary.

Insights

1. In terms of data security, being preventative is more effective than acting in reaction.

2. People need the ability to protect themselves online with ease so that they can achieve their desired task without compromising their safety.

3. There is a distinct difference between personal and non-personal accounts. A Netflix account shouldn't contain as much personal information as a Facebook account.

Ideation

Mapping out different ideas and areas we could tackle, from password management to social media control. Our mission and direction for the ideation phase was to find something that empowers people to protect their online identity.

A storyboard illustrating the story of someone with Salus getting a notification of a data breach and taking necessary action.

Sketching out different potential solutions. The focus was to make the solution as relatable and acessible as possible since it is meant for non specialist users.

I was trying to find a concrete path and tried Google's Golden Path method of mapping out the ideal path a user takes, with annotations for peripheral functions.

Created a concept map to better understand and represent the ecosystem we are designing for. Seeing how these entities interact helped us prioritize features and information. An insight from this concept map was that unsafe websites are a core reason for breaches since they allow for their users to be attacked.

Initial wireframes focusing on how Salus "talks" to the user and how we could provide a smooth experience.

After the first few rounds of wireframes we were left with 2 main approaches.

The top approach is very focused on accounts first, with linked services being secondary since accounts hold credentials and services work through accounts anyway.

The second approach is more focused on services so that the user can better connect the accounts to a service and have a better idea of what has been affected by a breach.

Next Steps

User test more in real life situations.

Do more research on how different services treat user data.

Further polish features to better establish their purpose and importance to the user.

Email

hridaew@gmail.com