What’s the security tool you use every day but secretly hate? Cluttered interfaces, subconscious analyst hacks around sharp edges, steep learning curves, and fraught deployments are far too common. We're not just talking about "enterprise" platforms - it's all those little pieces of essential software we use whether open source, home grown, web or CLI for analysis, logging, and automation.

Why is bad user experience (UX) in security tools so common? A few suspects:

UX is undervalued as a "soft" discipline in tools built by or for security teams.
Mastery of a hostile UI is even seen as a badge of honour or job security.
Analysts deeply understand the flow of their daily operations, but they lack the design language to build the best interface for it.
Vibe coding quickly gets you a UI, but not always one that understands the subtleties of cyber security investigations.
A "maximalist" mindset assumes more data and more features always equal a better tool.

Why is good UX so important? Bad UX in tools wastes time and creates frustration but worse, it leads to missed analysis, detection, and insight. Good interface design is the bridge between the human-in-the-loop and making the best decisions quickly, whether using AI or not.

If you're a security practitioner who writes software, "vibe codes" software, or has input into an internal software dev team, in this presentation you'll learn:

Why good UX is a technical requirement, not just window dressing.
That analysts’ mental models, not underlying data models, should drive UI design.
Guerrilla usability testing methods that cost zero dollars
A 'Security UX Manifesto': 6 UI patterns like Progressive Disclosure that reduce cognitive load when you’re under pressure.

We’ll use concrete examples and classic ideas from the UX discipline to get you on the road to much improved cyber security tooling.

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