Permissions experience - Designing for trust at the moment it matters most

Type of project

A real-world project completed as part of a broader onboarding redesign across The Floow’s white-label mobile apps for global insurers.

Company & product overview

The Floow creates mobile apps for insurers that require precise permissions (location, motion sensors, notifications, etc.) to deliver features like crash detection, driving feedback, and journey scoring. These permissions are critical to both product function and user privacy.

Skills & area of focus

Trust-centered UX, onboarding design, permission flows, mobile UX (iOS/Android), behavioural psychology, copywriting, interaction design, cross-platform consistency, user education.

Project problem or purpose

The app required multiple permissions upfront, but users often declined them due to unclear explanations or poor timing. This led to broken app features, higher churn, and reduced scoring accuracy. We needed to redesign the permissions flow to be transparent, reassuring, and aligned with user expectations, all without overwhelming them.

Roles, responsibilities, & team

I led the redesign, working closely with one UX designer, mobile engineers, compliance, and PMs. I also collaborated with customer success to analyse user complaints and drop-off points. Insurer partners were consulted to ensure alignment with regional privacy standards and support messaging.

Timeline, scope, constraints

The redesign ran across an 8-week cycle and had to work across multiple branded apps. Platform-specific behaviour (e.g. iOS vs Android permission triggers) added complexity, and every update had to respect strict insurer compliance rules and localisation needs.

Process & what I did

We mapped out when and why each permission was needed, and redesigned the flow to introduce requests in context, not all at once. I created a “why we need this” layer beneath each prompt, with visuals and friendly, non-technical language. The experience included fallback states and in-app prompts if permissions were skipped. I also oversaw testing to validate comprehension and confidence in both English and Spanish-speaking markets.

Outcomes, results, & lessons

We saw a 44% increase in users granting all key permissions during onboarding, and a 27% decrease in support tickets about app functionality issues. Feedback showed users appreciated the transparency and tone. The big insight: trust isn’t just built in branding, it’s earned in moments like this, when you ask users to hand over control. Clear, human-centred design makes that decision easier.