Proven Product Design Strategies Cybersecurity Teams Should Adopt
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for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based)Jun 09, 2025, 08:15am EDTShareSave
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Product design and cybersecurity may seem worlds apart, but they share a common goal: creating systems that people can trust, use intuitively and engage with seamlessly. Cybersecurity solutions that are too complex or obstructive often get bypassed, weakening the very defenses they aim to create.
Below, 20 members of Forbes Technology Council share design principles from the product world that cybersecurity leaders can adopt to strengthen security and reduce friction in their solutions. Follow their recommendations to build systems that users will actually embrace.
1. Embed It From The Start
Approach cybersecurity like great product design—embed it from the start. In digital health and SaMD, security isn’t an afterthought; it’s foundational to user trust, regulatory compliance and patient safety. - Mike Alvarez, Glooko, Inc.
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2. Empathize With Users
Cybersecurity leaders can learn to empathize with users—a core product design principle. Security solutions should be user-friendly and seamlessly integrate into workflows, reducing friction and encouraging secure behavior. Usability drives adoption, making security effective without becoming a burden. - Nirupam Samanta, Visa Inc.
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3. Avoid Rigid Controls And Complex Processes
In product design, usability is key; solutions are intuitive, accessible and aligned with how people naturally behave. Cybersecurity often errs by enforcing rigid controls or complex processes that frustrate users, leading them to bypass security measures altogether. - Jyoti Shah, ADP
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4. Remove Every Nonessential Element
Great product managers remove every nonessential element from their products. Great cybersecurity leaders should strip every unneeded port, privilege and dependency they can. By favoring elegant, minimal configurations over sprawling rule sets, security teams cut the attack surface and maintenance toil while making audits far simpler. - Andrew Siemer, Inventive
5. Make The Secure Path The Easiest One
If security controls are confusing or intrusive, users will find ways around them, weakening your defenses. Like product design, cybersecurity must focus on usability. Simplify authentication and data protection, test tools with real users and make the secure path the easiest one. Usable security is effective security. - Jonathan Stewart, ZenSource
6. Bake Protection Into Workflows
Design security like great UX: invisible, intuitive and frictionless. The best product experiences remove barriers—cybersecurity should do the same. If controls slow users down, they’ll find workarounds. Bake protection into workflows so users stay secure without thinking about it. - Nolan Garrett, TorchLight
7. Include Customers In The Development Process
Product design relies on its customer feedback loop. Cybersecurity leaders, if customers aren’t part of the development process, you’re flying blind. Building solutions with a customer-centric mindset shifts the focus from shipping fast to intentional design, ensuring tools are usable and effective. Users don’t reward the first to market. They reward the first to get it right. - Eoin Hinchy, Tines
8. Evangelize ‘Low Burden’
In product design, we evangelize “low burden.” Cybersecurity leaders should do the same, especially when it comes to MFA. Adoption increases when security fits natural user flows (for example, biometrics over token fatigue). Like great UX, secure systems must reduce friction, anticipate behavior and encourage effortless compliance. - Morgan Shuler, CocheVia
9. Design Around Real User Behavior
One key lesson is embracing user-centered design to reduce friction. When security workflows and solutions are designed around how people actually work—not how we wish they did—adoption goes up and risky workarounds go down. - Sivan Tehila, Onyxia Cyber
10. Keep It Simple And Elegant
The most successful products are often those that are simple and elegant to use. Of course, this doesn’t mean the product itself is simplistic. This principle can be co-opted in security through processes such as single-instance data storage in data lakes or other high-volume repositories, normalization of security data, and flexible analysis and visualization to support various stakeholders. - John Linkous, Phalanx Security
11. Make It Visible, Explainable And Easy To Do Right
Cybersecurity shouldn’t feel like a roadblock; it should feel like a well-designed product. Clarity drives behavior. If your controls confuse people, they’ll find a way around them. But if security feels natural, intuitive and purposeful, people lean in, not out. Design security like you’d design trust: visible, explainable and easy to do right the first time. - Doug Shannon
12. Aim For ‘Invisible Intuitiveness’
Cybersecurity leaders can learn from product design’s principle of “invisible intuitiveness”—crafting protections that feel seamless, frictionless and even delightful to use. Security shouldn’t just block threats; it should blend into workflows so elegantly that users embrace it as an enabler, not an obstacle, turning defense into experience design. - Hemanth Volikatla, SAP America INC
13. Focus On Solving A Problem For Users
Product designers have one priority, which is to build a product that solves problems for users in a simple and intuitive way. Cybersecurity solutions are often complicated and confuse users. Cybersecurity leaders should adopt product designers’ mindset and create solutions that are simpler and more intuitive. Simply put, cybersecurity should be easy to learn and understand. - Metin Kortak, Rhymetec
14. Embrace Design Thinking
Cybersecurity leaders can borrow the lesson of design thinking from product design. Prioritize user empathy and create security solutions that are intuitive and user-centered, ensuring both strong protection and ease of use for better adoption and effectiveness. - Lori Schafer, Digital Wave Technology
15. Prioritize UX
Cybersecurity leaders can learn from product design the importance of prioritizing user experience and intuitive interfaces to encourage the adoption of security best practices. Making security tools and protocols user-friendly reduces friction and human error, ultimately strengthening the overall security posture by fostering a more security-conscious culture. - Dennis-Kenji Kipker, cyberintelligence.institute
16. Design Around Human Behavior, Not Against It
Embrace user-centered security that designs around human behavior rather than against it. Like good product design, which prioritizes usability, effective security acknowledges that users will find workarounds for overly restrictive controls. By understanding user workflows and designing security that integrates naturally, leaders can achieve better protection through higher compliance and less friction. - Anuj Tyagi
17. Adopt A Continuous Product Design Mindset
Cybersecurity leaders should adopt a continuous product design mindset: Prioritize usability, measure performance metrics and iterate relentlessly. Designing for optimal end-to-end workflows across technology and organizational processes will go far beyond detection; it will improve the cybersecurity teams’ prioritization, decision-making and response. - Karen Kim, Human Managed
18. Make Security Solutions Empowering
Product design focuses on a great consumer experience. Providing higher security and ensuring usability don’t have to be at odds. Cybersecurity leaders have to ensure solutions are built with the principle of making them intuitive, low-friction and empowering. When users find security easy, they adopt it, transforming them from the “weakest link” into your strongest defense layer. - Ashish Bhardwaj, Google
19. Borrow The Principle Of ‘Progressive Disclosure’
Cybersecurity leaders can borrow the product design principle of “progressive disclosure.” Instead of overwhelming users with alerts, options or jargon up front, reveal critical security prompts contextually and just in time. This builds trust, reduces fatigue and ensures users engage meaningfully when it matters most, making secure behavior both intuitive and impactful. - Pawan Anand, Ascendion
20. Leverage Iterative Prototyping
Cybersecurity can borrow iterative prototyping from product design, testing defenses like evolving products, not static walls. Instead of overengineering for edge cases, launch MVP protections, gather threat feedback and rapidly refine. This agile mindset helps security adapt as fast as attackers do. - Rahul Wankhede, Humana
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This article was originally published on Forbes Technology Council on June 9, 2025