So Much Data, So Little Time—Designing for Security Workflows with Tom Harrison

Human-Centered Security

Security analysts respond to security detections and alerts. As part of this, they have to sift through a mountain of data and they have to do it fast. Not in hours, not in days. In minutes.

Tom Harrison, security operations manager at Secureworks, explains it perfectly, “We have a time crunch and it’s exacerbated by the other big issue security analysts have: we have an absolute ton of data that we have to sift through.”

In this episode:

Tom explains that security analysts are forced to go back to a pile of data with each subsequent question in their workflow. That’s a huge waste of time. And a terrible user experience.

Tom says, “It would lead to better accuracy, faster triage, and a better user experience if you can just take me directly to the answer or at the very least a subsection that has the answer I’m looking for.”

What does this mean for you as a UX designer designing security products? You need a deep understanding of security analyst workflows to help them identify and respond to attacks as quickly as possible.

That way, you can design security products that support users who are under intense pressure to do things quickly. Tom describes how the UX can “guide or complement the workflow.”

Tom talks about what gets him excited about integrating AI into security analyst workflows—and what has him worried, as well.

Tom Harrison is a Security Operations Manager at Secureworks. We dubbed Tom an “ideas machine” and a fierce advocate for the security analyst user experience. In fact, Tom is conducting UX research in the field better than most UX researchers. He’s a passionate teacher and shares his knowledge and resources in a free security reference guide.