Trust is loaned, not owned
Trust is earned by an organisation doing what it said it would do, repeatedly, in ways people can actually feel. It disappears quickly if this stops happening. Trust is not an asset to be owned and occasionally polished or repaired through reassuring messaging.
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Just enough trust
Too much trust in a system can be dangerous. A better goal is calibration: helping people place the right level of trust in a system for a specific decision. Introducing just enough friction for someone to make the right risk decision can help prevent problems; for example, indicating the confidence level or limitations of an output.
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Frictionless is a risk
Frictionless design can hide problems that resurface later when systems fail. It can be more helpful to introduce ‘good friction’: moments to inform people what’s happening, help them evaluate risk and allow them to contribute to decisions.
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Useful beats transparent
Disclosing information to show you can be trusted isn’t enough if it’s not in a form people understand. To make it legible, the information must surface in the right way, at the right time, in a form people can grasp and act on. This should inform product design.
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More proof, more potential
You will be able to build more impactful products if you are able to provide evidence that you are trustworthy. This may involve technical enablers, such as tamper-evident logs or AI systems that can explain how they are reaching decisions. It may also involve independent human oversight.
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Consent is a relationship, not a transaction
Consent in digital services has been reduced to people tapping a banner, with no understanding of what they’re agreeing to and no way to revisit the decision. Instead, it should be seen as a relationship that unfolds over time, involving clear communication and genuine choice.
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