The marriage of user experience and security

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, so everyone is talking about love — us included. Here at Okta, while we’re certainly swooning over roses, wine, and chocolates, what we really hold near and dear are our relationships with customers and the experiences they have with our technology. We obsess over uniting two seemingly divorced characteristics — security and user experience — and creating a beautiful union between the two.

In the past, security and user experience weren’t compatible, let alone a match made in heaven. Users wanted easy-to-use apps, and security teams played “hard to get” by enforcing strict policies. But we're finally seeing a shift.

A great user experience is still simple and intuitive. Its job is to get out of the way, and the interface should effectively anticipate needs. Until recently, that kind of good design had primarily been found in consumer-facing software. However, consumer products don’t always prioritise data security, and they aren’t always IT administrator-friendly.

Contrast this to an enterprise app. It used to be that an enterprise app just had to get the job done; whether the experience of actually using that software was pleasant or not, or met the functional needs of real human users. Enterprise apps prioritised fitting into the back-end system, swinging in the direction of utility. But now, we — users, customers, the ones interacting with software at work — have raised our standards. We’re used to natural and intuitive design because it’s so common in consumer-facing apps. Good design has become a part of our everyday lives. Business software gains a competitive edge by being intuitive and easy to use.

The key to a healthy partnership between the user and administer is this marriage of design and functionality, user experience and security.

Take Okta for example: features like AD password sync for mobile devices reduces lockout and user frustration, and helps organisations drive EMM adoption. As a result, by choosing an intuitively designed product that has thought through pain points that real humans experience, security-conscious organisations build a natural affinity for the product that’s been deployed. There’s a higher adoption of security tools inside the organisation – and they work to actually keep company - and other sensitive - information safe from hackers.

So be sure to pick a partner and use apps that meet your needs for both usability and security, you don’t have to settle for one or the other. The perfect union does exist, and Okta is the matchmaker that can help you find your match — or enterprise app — made in heaven!