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UX design plays a huge role in providing great cookie consent experiences. This blog posts explores the connection.

In the first part of this blog post, we looked at the connection between poor cookie consent and UX. Now, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and dig into the real problem—as well as the solution.

Why UX design for cookie consent is so bad

On one hand, companies needed to comply with strict privacy regulations and clearly inform website visitors of their rights in order to obtain explicit concern.

On the other hand, they needed to make sure they were not interrupting the user journey—all the while not taking away from the website’s content or aesthetics. 

It was no easy feat, and some companies just slapped together some horrendously-looking, quick-fix solutions to ‘check all the boxes.’

From endless dropdown menus, ambiguous check boxes, creative sliders, to landmines of embedded links—there has been all sorts of stomach-churning consent UX which do not help to inform the user at all. 

“By overwhelming users with technobabble, legal jargon and a myriad of options, companies know damn well that users will not have the time or inclination to make informed decisions. Most users are simply clicking yes and moving on.” (Boagworld.com)

And is that what you really want? To pressure a potential customer to make a decision haphazardly, not knowing what they’re really agreeing to?

And if you’re thinking ‘but visitors can easily opt out of consenting’, think again. Based on a website consent tracking experiment done by a Vice editor, she was unsure if she successfully opted out of 34% of the websites she visited. 

In the world of consent cookies, you’re darned if you do, and you’re darned if you don’t. 

Common cookie consent UX pitfalls not to fall into

As we mentioned, it was a challenge for companies to a) ensure their website is privacy compliant b) not interrupt the user experience, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Sure, you may have to spend a lot more time coming up with a more empathetic, respectful, and informative cookie consent UX, but it’s in your best interest to do it well—or it may cost you in the long run.

Why you need to avoid ‘Accept All’ at all costs: 

It’s so much easier for companies to just design a cookie consent UX that just prompts users to ‘Accept All’ out of desperation. We get it: no one wants to see their website traffic drop off because of a few cookies. 

Source: UX Design - How to design ‘cookie consent’ fairly?

But this is not an effective long term solution, nor does it help the growing ‘Consent Fatigue’ many of us are experiencing. 

“‘Consent Fatigue’: burdening users with questions and forcing decisions when they access a website for the first time.” (Practical-ux.com)

As companies, we need to do better than just rely on the apathy of our users and cross our fingers, hoping they’ll ‘Accept All’.

Also, wouldn’t you rather have consent from users who are actually interested in your brand and content, who give you their consent enthusiastically? 

That’s why it’s important to resist consent UX design faux-pas. The worst of them all? ‘Dark Pattern’.

Dark pattern: resist crossing over to ‘the dark side’

With a name like a bad sci-fi thriller movie, Dark Patterns are known as UI/UX cookie consent practices that “lure internet users into providing consent for cookies”. According to UX specialist Harry Brignull who coined the term—they trick users into “doing a thing you wouldn’t otherwise have done.”

It’s fundamental for your business to not fall victim to them because 1) they can be illegal 2) they are deceptive and make your brand look bad.

For example, the app below asks you if it can collect your data, but doesn’t provide an option to opt-out, thus ‘nudging’ you to say yes. 

Source: Ensighten - What are Dark Patterns?

Or this one, which is just flat-out confusing and not giving you a simple way to disable cookies: 

The point of the matter is this: is this really the type of first impression you want to have on a potential customer who could be loyal for years to come?

Brands that usually fall into the ‘dark patterns’ trap are likely afraid of low cookie acceptance rate. We know it’s tempting to implement a quick-fix with minimal damage—but it’s not right.

What if we told you there is a solution to boost your cookie opt-in rate, that is 100% grass-fed, and dark-pattern-free?

3 best practices for great cookie consent UX design:

Good and bad cookie consent UX design comes down to 3 things: clarity, simplicity, and empathy.

Clarity means that the visitor should clearly understand from your cookie consent banner, why you are collecting their data, what you will do with it, and how to accept/ opt-out/ manage your preferences: 

“Website owners should give a fair choice between two options. They should explain what happens to users' data, how it will be stored and for how long. Nothing should be left to interpretation.” (Practical-ux.com) 

Simplicity means they shouldn’t have to navigate a MC Escher-esque website and menus to find your privacy policy or to change their preferences.

Empathy means that you’re designing with the end-users in mind—not only empowering them with choice—but also presenting the consent process to them in a friendly and personalized way.

Optimize your cookie opt-in rate with Axeptio

With a CMP Consent Management Platform like Axeptio, it’s totally possible to design a beautiful consent UX that is also compliant and increases opt-in rates.

Sounds too good to be true? Let us explain how we’re different:

First, we don’t rush the consent experience. We know trust takes time to build, even if it’s the first impression 

We’re fans of using conversational language and friendly, cute cookie characters to set a welcoming tone

Instead of blocking the visitor from your content right away to get consent, we wait for various on-page engagements like a scroll on the page or the click on a button, then we apply our freezing overlay and very politely ask for their consent

We try to integrate our tool as seamlessly as possible into your design, so it doesn’t feel like we’re interrupting the flow

Cookie consent UX doesn’t have to be complicated. Or shady. Or ugly. It can be perfectly compliant, all the while respecting your website aesthetics, brand values, and most of all—your user. 

So now you’ve heard us talk the talk, and want to see us walk the walk? Challenge accepted. Sign up for your free trial and see how you can transform your cookie consent UX with us.

Privacy and UX: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences (with examples)

Meet a cookie

Privacy & UX Part 2.: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences 

UX design plays a huge role in providing great cookie consent experiences. This blog post explores the connection.

Think about the last time you came across a bad user experience.

Perhaps it was a poorly designed product, service, or website. 

How did the experience make you feel? Confused, frustrated—perhaps even angry? 

If you were on a website with bad UX, it probably deterred you from making a purchase or downloading content.

Bad UX has the potential to evoke the worst of a user’s emotions, let alone change their mind about your company. 

And what if you landed on a website for the first time, you were met with a cookie consent opt-in labyrinth that looked like this: 

Source: Medium - Cookies UX: just stop the madness

You didn’t need that pie recipe that bad. 

The point of this analogy is this: at the heart of UX design, is the user. Putting their needs and desires at the center or your design choices will be the key to unlocking great, intuitive, and respectful UX. 

In this blog post, we’ll be exploring the role that UX design plays when it comes to providing a good consent experience, and why this is crucial to get right for your business. 

But first, let’s look at what UX design actually means, and why it matters for websites.

In a nutshell, UX (User Experience) design is described as: “the (end-to-end) personal, internal experience customers go through when using a product's interface.” (User Report)

Let’s take real, edible, chocolate chip cookies as an example of UX design. What if cookies were designed as large balls instead of flat, disc-shaped confectioneries that fit perfectly in your mouth? Or what if they didn’t come with chocolate chips embedded in them but you had to add them in yourself? 

These theoretical design choices/ poor UX would likely cause ‘friction’ in your cookie-eating journey: either deterring you from eating more ‘cookies’—or switching to a different type of baked good altogether (unless you were Cookie Monster.) 

Most of us only pay attention to UX when it’s designed poorly. This is because when it’s done well, users don’t even think about it—which is kind of the point. 

But when website UX is no bueno, it can have a huge impact on your traffic, conversion, and sales. 

“To put it simply, UX is important because it tries to fulfill the user's needs. It aims to provide positive experiences that keep users loyal to the product or brand. Additionally, a meaningful user experience allows you to define customer journeys on your website that are most conducive to business success.” (Rocket55)

Good UX design can keep your customer engaged longer, making regular purchases easier, thus adding to their lifetime value (LTV).

Think about Amazon Prime or Netflix: most of us have a subscription, and have had one for quite some time. Is it because they offer the best selection of products or films anyone has to offer? No.

It’s because they make the browsing and purchase experience so seamless. Why would you go through all the trouble of switching?

For this reason, UX design for your website is incredibly important—from the very beginning of your user’s customer journey. And guess what is the very first potential friction point your visitor encounters? Your cookie consent popup.

UX design and cookie consent: what’s the connection?

Since the implementation of EU’s GDPR law in 2018, companies were faced with a not-so-fun challenge: they needed to get consent from their website visitors to collect their personal data, as soon as they landed on the home page.

If you need a refresher on ‘What are cookies?’ Check out our blog post here.

Translation in user experience: websites had to introduce a new point of friction in their visitor’s browsing journey.

It’s like if you were dining at a restaurant and your food arrives. Just before you’re about to take the first bite, the waiter brings you 14 different types of cutlery to choose from. You are stressed and hungry, so you just end up taking them all. A bad cookie consent experience can make you lose your appetite for that website. 

Rachel McConnell, Head of UX Content at Flo, cautions: 

“Far from being an afterthought, your cookie experience is the very first impression someone gets of your site, and if it’s bad, they probably won’t make it onto your site at all.”

Websites needed to work with simple and not-so-intrusive solutions to ensure their visitors knew their information and behavior could be tracked throughout the site upon landing, while encouraging them to stay on the site. 

Challenge accepted. And companies got creative.

Stay tuned for part two of this blog post…

UX design plays a huge role in providing great cookie consent experiences. This blog post explores the connection.

Privacy and UX Part 1: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences (with examples)

Privacy and UX Part 1: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences 

Implementing a consent manangement platform can seem like an overwhelming project. This blog post explains how Axeptio’s features can help simplify the process.



They are armed with clipboards and matching t-shirts of their non-profit organization. 

They spot you from a distance and approach you, asking if you would handover your personal information or make a donation—without even knowing your name.

We’ve all been accosted in this type of borderline intrusive situation, and it’s not a nice feeling.  

It’s the same feeling when you visit a website for the first time and a random popup asks you to hand over your personal data and to track your behavior (buy us a drink first, at least?).

If you’re a business in today’s world, your website is considered to be the face of your brand. Everything you implement on it needs to be carefully thought through from the eyes of your audience—especially how you ask for consent.

When consent management is done right, it can have a monumental effect on your business and brand image. On the flipside, managing user consent is extremely tricky, and we’ll explain why.

In this blog post, we’ll take you through how a consent management platform like Axeptio can be the simplest, most user friendly, and sleek cookie solution for you.

When the GDPR was introduced in 2018, panic ensued. 

Companies had to now ensure that they first obtained explicit consent before they stored or processed any type of personal information from EU citizens. Businesses scrambled to slap together band aid solutions for obtaining consent.

From intrusive cookie pop up banners to ‘dark pattern’ designs that nudged users to hand over their consent(before they could do anything on your website)—it was only a matter of time before people started suffering the impact of poor consent UX.

This is also known as ‘consent fatigue’. This means that your users are becoming too overwhelmed with making decisions about their consent that they default to clicking ‘accept all’ when your cookie banner pops up, or, they ignore it altogether.

Neither of these are results you should want as a business because while the former may help you obtain good consent acceptance rates, it’s not an accurate indicator of your website’s performance.

Source: Practical UX - Cookie Diabetes and Consent Fatigue

Imagine if you were a restaurant and your customers default to giving you 5 star reviews because otherwise, they wouldn’t get their food. These reviews wouldn’t accurately reflect what your customers actually think of your food so, how would it help you improve as a business?

Consent Management Platforms: the solution to fight consent fatigue

Being compliant and having good consent UX is no longer a ‘nice to have’ today—but a necessity. 

Capgemini reports: “40% of global consumers will increase their spending at least by 20% if they receive data privacy and cybersecurity assurances.”

This is why the way you handle your website visitors’ personal data can make or break your business.

The thing is, managing consent is no easy feat due to three reasons: 

Companies need to first ask users to hand over personal information, clearly understand the purpose, and manage their preferences in a way that doesn’t interrupt their website browsing experience. It’s a challenge for many designers and the reason why so many companies struggle with it.

It’s an overwhelming process to implement a complete consent management process because there are different parts and stakeholders to work with. From understanding all of the legal obligations to implementing a system that satisfies your users and different departments, there will be a lot of back and forth.

Last but not least, handling people’s personal information is always a touchy subject. As a company, you need to be extra sensitive to your users’ needs while ensuring that you’re clearly communicating what you’re doing with their information.

This is not going to be an easy challenge, but it’s where a consent management platform like Axeptio can help.

What is a consent management platform and why do you need one?

In a nutshell, a consent management platform (CMP) is a tool or technology that obtains and manages user consent to process their personal information. This type of tool can automate the consent process, helping websites get permissions to use cookies and store cookies, but allowing the end user to modify their preferences as they wish.

Basically, it’s a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ type of tool that helps you manage the entire compliance process. But the real reason why it’s so worthwhile for businesses to implement one is because: “... it makes consent management processes smoother, easier, and more efficient.” (Security AI)

What is the Axeptio Consent Management Platform?

Axeptio is a user-centered consent management solution. It allows you to comply with all requirements of the Cookie Law by:

Helping your users understand the types of personal information you collect, what you plan to do with them, and how they can manage their preferences

Preventively blocking scripts before obtaining consent

Keeping track of user consent and saving their consent settings

Being completely customizable to your branding, without compromising design aesthetics 

All this, plus we use adorable cookie characters! (because who can resist them?)

There is a common misconception that implementing a CMP needs to be a long and complicated process—it’s quite the contrary with the right solution. Here are some of the key differences that make Axeptio stand out above the rest: 

Think you need a team of developers to implement Axeptio? Think again. You can set up our cookie widget in minutes simply by copying and pasting a snippet of code. No technical knowledge? No problem, because anyone can do it. 

For us, consent is not only a matter of law, it’s also a matter of empathizing with our users’ experience. Instead of using long paragraphs full of legal jargon, we use a friendly and transparent tone, plus cute characters because we actually want your users to care about and understand their consent rights. What’s more, we follow user-triggered events like a mouse scroll or a click on a button before asking for their consent.

No one said you had to compromise good design to be compliant. That’s why we don’t believe in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cookie banner. You can fully customize your cookie banner according to your branding so the consent experience is seamless with the rest of your website.

Just because it’s friendly, pretty, and sleek—doesn’t mean it’s not powerful! Our cookie solution gets ridiculously great opt-in rates (95%) because of how well all of the features we mentioned work together. We’re on a mission to fight consent fatigue and to improve your opt-in rates organically. 

Sounds too good to be true? Try Axeptio out for yourself risk-free. Who knows, you may even end up saving a whole lot of time thanks to it. Then you’ll have plenty to whip up some cookies. The real kind. 

Implementing a consent manangement platform can seem like an overwhelming project. This blog post explains how Axeptio’s features can help simplify the process.

Simplicity of the Axeptio consent management solution: compliant, sleek & user-friendly

Consent management simplified: how to become compliant, user-friendly & sleek with Axeptio

Poorly designed cookie consent banners are causing users to ignore their privacy choices altogether. This blog post explains what consent fatigue is and how to alleviate it.

It’s almost the end of the workday and you’re about to browse your 124th website. 

You wait for it to load—of course, another cookie banner pops up asking you to give your consent. *Queue the eyeroll and sigh*

You know the drill. You’ll unenthusiastically glance over their explanation to ask you to consent and hover to click the ‘Accept All’ button as quickly as possible so you can put that thing in your shopping cart— and get on with your day.

Source: Practical UX : Cookie Diabetes and Consent Fatigue

The cookie banners have triggered a type of syndrome: a combination of annoyance and indifference from website visitors who tend either to leave the site or ‘accept all’ out of spite. 

While it may not sound like a serious problem, it’s a critical topic for websites because it impacts your performance, as well as your brand image.

To fix this, you must improve the overall cookie consent UX. Not sure where to start? We’ll walk you through what it is and how to improve it.

According to Practical UX.com, consent fatigue is referred to: "burdening users with questions and forcing decisions when they access a website for the first time.”

As internet users, we are confronted with countless awfully-designed cookie banners every day. And the more sites you visit, the more of them you see.

Consent fatigue stems from this avalanche of solicitations. They are often boring, repetitive because they all talk about cookies and only cookies—and not the tasty kind. 

And some consent UX can even be deemed as straight-up ‘aggressive’. Like the ones that block your access to the site in order to get your consent first.

Source: Clario: What Are Dark Patterns and How They Trick You

This genre of poor consent UX on the internet is becoming a real disaster as it pushes your audience to adopt often one of three problematic behaviors:

Some users avoid consent requests like the plague. They install an adblocker to block banners or click on the cross to close the module;

Others leave the site as soon as they see the banner;

The majority of them accept cookies by default, because they feel pressured or because they click a button without thinking. 

None of these is the action you really want your website visitor to take, is it? 

Wouldn’t you much rather have a user engage with your website, show clear interest, and then enthusiastically give you their consent so you can tailor your content to them?

Why do your users suffer from consent fatigue?

As you probably know, the GDPR has required all companies who do business with EU citizens to obtain the consent of visitors before storing certain cookies .

Because obtaining user consent was not a voluntary process for companies, many of them applied ‘quick-fix’ solutions or whatever was the easiest for them to adapt.

Upon landing on every other website, a cookie wall suddenly appears in the centre of the page. And you have to accept cookies..or reject all…or manage your preferences.

We often find the same banners with very technical, legal jargon that ends up drowning you in a mass of information and confusion. In short, this system discourages you from exercising your rights, and as a result nudges you to accept by default.

The GDPR did impose a challenge on companies to be compliant, however, it has never implied that we should compromise the quality of user experience.

Let's just say a lot of sites haven't made the effort to build something user friendly, respectful, and sustainable. 

And it was this shoddy experience that caused the fatigue.

First and foremost because it can impact the measurement of your website performance.

Sure, we all want to boost our consent opt-in rates—but we need to be careful not to degrade the user experience. Why? 

Intrusive cookie walls that contribute to poor website UX can greatly impact your bounce rate.

When visitors first land on your site, many of them do not want to be forced to make a choice. They want to close the banner as quickly as possible, or even ignore it to continue browsing. Basically, they don’t want to interact with your module. (Can you blame them with all of the thousands of decisions they have to make everyday?)

By the end of their visit, this fatigue leads to collecting consent that is not truly consented. Therefore, this makes it difficult to assign your opt-in rates as a relevant KPI to measure brand loyalty.

So then, should consent be abandoned altogether as a KPI? 

What about replacing consent with legitimate interest, at least for some types of cookies? 

The thing is, consent is actually a good way to give control back to your users by allowing them to control certain data flows.

Keep in mind that the challenge for you is not to multiply your compliance efforts. It is to put the user at the center of your consent UX concerns. By empathizing with them as you design your cookie banner process, you’ll be able to fight and alleviate consent fatigue.

How to fight consent fatigue through user experience

While it may seem like an impossible challenge, fighting consent fatigue actually presents an excellent opportunity for your brand to stand out.

Think about all of the bad websites and poor cookie consent pop-ups your audience is solicited with everyday. Brand differentiation will be the winning move here and what better way to stand out than to deliver a best-in-class consent management experience?

At the same time, this is also an opportunity to capture the attention of your users, by implementing: consent-as-a-service. 

Basically, you implement “a tool to enable you to create your own consent experiences for privacy regulation compliance”.(Community CrowdPeak). You make the experience friendly, engaging, and transparent, which your visitors will take notice of. 

Obviously, you don't have the time, nor necessarily the internal skills, to work on the experience to offer. And that's where a CMS like Axeptio can help.

Our solution focuses on building a slick UX design, friendly graphics, with an educational and fun tone. And it’s a piece of cake—all you have to do is install it.

The widget is fully customizable and adapts to all branding guidelines, allowing you to offer the best experience to your audience. They won’t get tired of seeing your cookie banners displayed, even on the sites of other publishers!

Our contextual consent or our consent wall allows you to enrich the browsing experience and thus optimize your consent rate.

By installing our CMS on your website, you’re integrating:

A perfectly GDPR compliant cookie management system

A privacy control feature through cookies

An educational marketing tool that will improve your user’s brand experience. The cookies widget is one of the secret ingredients for your website



Fight against consent fatigue with a user-friendly CMP

What do you do when the European legislators give your website lemons? You make GDPR compliant lemonade!

Instead of responding to user anxiety about their data by presenting them with more privacy choices they have to make, you can choose to make their browsing experience reassuring and friendly. 

Axeptio may be a solution for you. It's a simple, modern, and elegant way to enrich your user experience—all the while being compliant and sleek.

Put your users at the heart of your consent UX problems, show them that you care and respect their privacy decisions—it will go a long way to build their trust in your brand.

Consent fatigue: what it is and why it’s happening to your users

Your users are suffering from consent fatigue and here’s why

The average person visits 130 web pages everyday.

Guess what is the very first thing they encounter on many of those web pages?

Cookies are now a fundamental part of any website because they help companies collect user information in order to make their browsing experience more personalized.

They are also often the first interaction between a brand and its customers, playing a huge part in establishing consumer trust.

The problem is, people are becoming more and more skeptical about cookies and don’t want to have their behavior tracked on the internet. So the way you inform and ask your visitors for consent — can make or break your business.

In this blog post, we’ll explain why good cookie and consent management is vital for brand trust, as well as how to do this right.

Go ahead, take a big bite. You won’t need a glass of milk for these cookies.

Cookies: what are they and how do they work?

Cookies are essentially a small data file that is sent by a website that you’re visiting, to your browser. The information stored on them can include: 

This data is then stored on your browser, allowing the website to retrieve this information when you come back next time. 

It’s like when your favorite barista at Starbucks remembers your exact order without you having to tell them. Love it.

And the point of all this: so websites can provide you with a more intuitive and efficient browsing experience (Netflix, anyone?). 

That’s just the gist of what cookies are. To truly understand how they work, and the different types that exist, check out our beginner’s guide.

Remember a time when we were able to visit websites and not be bombarded by annoying cookie popups? Let's talk about why they became a hot topic.

All of this ‘cookie action’ happened thanks to the passing of two data privacy laws in 2018: the GDPR and the CPPA. Suddenly, companies started panicking and everyone was racing to add ‘accept cookies’ banners plus updating their privacy policies. 

The GDPR in a nutshell, was created to protect the handling and storing of individual’s information online. 

It requires companies that process the personal data of EU citizens and residents “to have robust processes in place for handling and storing personal information.” This means it’s demanding strict rules for how businesses ask for and get consent.

In other words, if your website has EU visitors and you’re tracking their data without their consent or disclosing your intention, you could be charged with a hefty, million-dollar fine — no matter where you’re based. OUCH.

BlogWhat‘s up Axeptio ?

Privacy & UX Part 2.: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences

Privacy and UX Part 1: Why you should design better cookie consent experiences

Consent management simplified: how to become compliant, user-friendly & sleek with Axeptio

Your users are suffering from consent fatigue and here’s why

Cookie consent : how to build trust with your users ?

What are cookies?