Designing services for people who’ve lost trust online – Design in government
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https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/23/designing-services-for-people-whove-lost-trust-online/
Illustration from the Stop! Think Fraud site.
When people trust something, it makes them feel safe. But how do you<br>support users when it’s getting harder to tell what’s real online?
I work on a service which helps people to pay for things, and users’ trust<br>has steadily declined as online scams have become more convincing.
Scams can affect anyone
Scammers work like designers, they iterate based on what works. They<br>impersonate government services, like offering tax refunds, often at<br>times when people expect them. And now they can use AI to attempt to<br>impersonate someone’s voice, face or a government website with<br>worrying accuracy.
Last year, three quarters of British adults said they had encountered a<br>scam of some kind. In our user research, we’ve heard participants say it<br>feels like scams are ruining the internet.
I was the victim of impersonation fraud. Someone phoned me pretending<br>to be from my bank. They knew my debit card number and where I lived.<br>I design digital payment services and think about scams regularly, yet I<br>believed them. When I panicked and stalled, they became intimidating.
I didn’t share any information, but they still managed to take money. I felt<br>undignified and ashamed calling my bank to explain.
Why losing trust is a problem
Being scammed can make you stop trusting yourself, your device, and<br>the internet. We see this in how people behave when paying for things.
Some people:
stop mid-task to check if something is real
phone in a panic to confirm a payment has gone through
abandon a journey if something unexpected happens
avoid paying online altogether
A badly designed form can provoke these feelings quickly and<br>unexpectedly.
It’s not just about paying for things. Many people feel like the internet is<br>too risky to use for everyday tasks like online banking, food shopping, or<br>using online medical bookings. For some people, a bad experience can<br>tip them into a period of digital exclusion.
Three ways of designing for people who’ve lost trust
Designing for safety, not speed
Paying for something can be deeply emotional. We’ve seen evidence<br>from user research that it triggers stress, anxiety and confusion. This is<br>especially true for people who have experienced scams and financial<br>trauma before.
I’ve been learning about trauma informed design, from designers<br>including Rachel Edwards and Jane McFadyen. I’m not an expert, but<br>it’s helped me think differently about how people experience services.
The body’s nervous system affects how we process information when<br>we feel unsafe, and it might take longer to do things. For victims of<br>online fraud, this could mean designing ways that:
allow them to take things slowly
provide reassurance
explain what’s happening
offer offline options
For example, in one digital journey, we ask users to enter personal<br>information including their National Insurance number. We introduced a<br>new screen at the start of this section to explain why we need it and how<br>it will be used.
Even though the journey was longer, it helped people feel more<br>confident. It increased transparency at a point where users needed a<br>pause to sense check things.
We can get hung up on how long a service takes to use, but a slightly<br>longer journey can feel more reassuring for users, and help reduce the<br>feeling of urgency that fraudsters try to create.
Making things clear and transparent
I’ve also found that people want to know what’s happening, as it<br>happens. Presenting information in ‘real time’, such as the status of an<br>action, helps to build trust. This reduces uncertainty and stops most<br>people from needing to call up.
Behind the scenes, it can be complex to do this. I’ve needed to work<br>closely with Business Analysts and developers to decide how to display<br>clear, logic-based content that’s easy to understand.
AI is part of the solution
Even though AI can enable scams, it can also help to prevent them.
Some banking apps can help you spot a scam while it’s happening. If<br>you open your app during a call, it may show a message saying “You’re<br>not on a call with us.” If someone claims to be your bank and you see<br>this message, it’s a scam.
AI is used widely by bank fraud detection teams to detect criminal<br>activity. It can look at hundreds of data points instantly to check if<br>anything looks suspicious.
As we look to advance these processes across government services,<br>designers and security specialists need to work together so that design<br>thinking is at the heart.
What are you doing to help rebuild trust?
Fraud is constantly evolving, and designing for people who’ve lost trust<br>is now a core part of our work.
I am lucky to be part of a community of practice in HMRC where we<br>share findings between us, as a closed, trusted group. I’d love to hear<br>from other designers...