Build Security and UX Into Your Product Development Process with Ali Cuthbertson and Jason Telner

Human-Centered Security

If there’s one thing both UX teams and security teams can empathize with each other on is being involved too late in the development process. Ali Cuthbertson and Jason Telner realized that it wasn’t enough for teams to embrace the need for UX and security—they needed a method for integrating them into their agile development processes.

Throughout the interview, Ali and Jason will be referencing a project they worked on together to help develop and foster a consistent process for integrating UX and security into an agile development process for teams at IBM. As a result of their work, they developed a set of principles and best practices. They talk about:

• How a set of principles can serve as a guide for teams.
• Why integrating UX and security involved a cultural shift for teams in order to be successful.
• Why support from leadership is instrumental for new processes to be effective.
• Tips for leveraging mixed methods user research to look at problems from different angles.
• How to measure the success of embedding UX and security into existing processes.

Ali and Jason presented some of their research and recommendations at the 2023 UXPA presentation called “How to balance strong user experiences with enhanced security within an agile framework? Lessons learned and best practices.”

Ali Cuthbertson is the Technical Vitality Development Manager and CIO Design Program Manager at IBM. Ali brings over 20 years of seasoned expertise navigating software and hardware engineering. She has become the Indiana Jones of life sciences, user experience, talent management, vitality optimization, security protocols, AI advancements, data analytics, scientific exploration, and cutting edge cloud technologies.

Jason Telner, PhD, is a senior user researcher within IBM’s CIO design user research and data analytics team. Jason has over 15 years of experience working within the field of user research. In his current role at IBM, Jason’s focus has been on improving the user experience of employee support applications such as chatbots, web support, and voice interface support.