Overview
What began as a response to evolving global privacy laws quickly became a deeper mission: rebuilding user trust at scale. With regulations like GDPR and CCPA raising the bar for transparency, users were demanding more control and clarity over their data. At the same time, major tech companies were facing record-breaking fines for dark patterns, vague disclosures, and non-compliant consent practices.
Business needs
Build user trust
Increase engagement
Enable informed consent for data use (to support ad revenue)
Reduce legal risk
Privacy controls Layer 1 & 2 before
Problems
Hard-to-navigate privacy settings
Overwhelming legal jargon
Inconsistent UI across account experiences
Lack of clarity around consent status
Risk of regulatory non-compliance
Opportunities
In response to rising user expectations and evolving global regulations, we saw a critical opportunity to:
Lead with empathy by prioritizing transparency and user trust.
Redesign the privacy experience around real user needs—not just legal checkboxes.
Set a new standard for ethical, user-first, and compliant design practices.
Launch a scalable consent framework adopted across products, properties, and international regions—supporting both regulatory compliance and business growth.
My role
Partnered closely with Legal, Product, Engineering, User research, Content, and Account design teams
Led design collaboratively from system-level frameworks to detailed microcopy
Contributed to the design system
Objectives
User needs
Build trust through transparent, user-first privacy design
Legal requirements
Ensure compliance with GDPR/CCPA
Business needs
Increase opt-in engagement and reduce legal risk
Competitive research
Design
We rewrote all privacy copy in plain, user-friendly language—moving away from legalese.
Introduced Q&A format for consent explanations
Added tooltips, toggles, helper text, and badges for clarity
Applied Yahoo design system (type, color, spacing, iconography)
Test, Learn, Iterate
I partnered with UXR to validate three key design directions:
Align & Iterate
I worked closely with the Account designers to align on a cohesive look and feel, ensuring consistency in design and a seamless user experience across all touchpoints.
Final solution
Scaling Across Properties & Regulations
We extended the privacy framework beyond the Account Center—adapting it for multiple user touchpoints (like article pages and mobile surfaces), supporting a variety of content types (videos, social embeds, toggles), and ensuring compliance with regional privacy laws across the U.S. and Europe.
third-party embedded content consent Before & AFter
As more U.S. states introduced legislation (e.g., California, Colorado, Virginia), we extended the system to meet state-specific consent requirements.
u.s. State specific privacy controls
Reflection
Trust is earned through every interaction
Ethical design scales when built into systems
Cross-functional collaboration turns compliance into innovation
Plain language is a superpower in privacy
