Clayton Harding
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MCAFEE VPN
Using AI to turn generic upsells into helpful recommendations that actually convert
CONTRIBUTIONS
Design Documentation Component Creation
Prototyping
Workshop Facilitator
Team
Susanna Huang
Nina Wang
Jeffrey Jose
Jen Barrell
TIMELINE
Nov—Jan 2024
Overview
McAfee's VPN is one of many security tools, often bundled in protection plans. Over time, the tool had fallen behind as updates rolled out to newer products, and was not being maintained by a dedicated team.
My role
To address long-standing pain points and it's outdated MVP, I assisted with early research, feature planning, and end-to-end designs.
Result
We set a new standard for how we educate users about our product. We updated our graphics library, new motion tools and an overall better experience for new and returning users, we can now push VPN in our marketing more.
PROBLEM
Users struggled to grasp what a VPN does, and when to use it
"It's on, but nothing happened, is it doing something?"
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value.
Without a clear purpose, we saw a decline in users renewing their VPN subscription
What if instead of raising the price, we use AI to filter through customers tax situations to find their most stressful need, and inform them how we can alleviate that stress with targeted messaging with dynamic value statements.
PROBLEM
It's not clear what a VPN is, what it does or when to use it
"It's on, but nothing happened, is it doing something?"
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value.
Without a clear purpose, we saw a decline in users renewing their VPN subscription
This is the first point I'm going to make
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The second point is also important
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Finally, this is what we ended up with, personally I think it's pretty nice
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore .
How do you visualize something that you can't prove?
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Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped
PROBLEM
Users struggled to understand what a VPN does, and when to use it
"It's on, but nothing happened, is it doing something?"
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value.
Without a clear purpose, we saw a decline in users renewing their VPN subscription
Going further
Side quest—Let's not make accessibility an afterthought
1/3
New users struggled to understand what a VPN does, and when to use it.
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur.
2/3
New users struggled to understand what a VPN does, and when to use it.
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur.
3/3
New users struggled to understand what a VPN does, and when to use it.
Unlike security software that shows what dangers they stopped, VPNs work by making you invisible to threats, making it difficult to show their value. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur.
REFLECTION
Despite the internal hype, priorities changed and the revamp was shelved. But my learnings shipped.
Everyone hates reading, but they love conversations.
Balancing what we as a business want users to know V.S what a user actually wants to know is a difficult line. This project helped me learn how to use metaphors on boring language into legible content.
Sketching is for starting discussions, not beauty contests.
I typically jump into higher fidelity, but if I need to align a team on layout and abstract concepts, I’m now confident in running a workshop to rapid-fire ideas and align stakeholders from other teams.
© 2025 Clayton Harding
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