Use age gate when eligibility, content access, or child-safety obligations depend on age or age band; use consent prompt for a specific data or action choice, permission request for device or resource access, sensitive-data reveal for intentional exposure, privacy settings for durable controls, and cookie banner for tracking consent.
Use age gate when eligibility, content access, or child-safety obligations depend on age or age band; use consent prompt for a specific data or action choice, permission request for device or resource access, sensitive-data reveal for intentional exposure, privacy settings for durable controls, and cookie banner for tracking consent.
Practice the judgment: Imagine this situation: The form asks only Are you over 18? with Yes highlighted, then shows restricted content before checking the answer. Write the person's goal, choose one of these patterns, and show the state that helps the person continue. Use the decision rules and source trail below to explain your choice.
Review the underlying principle →| Dimension | Age gate | Consent prompt | Permission request | Sensitive-data reveal | Privacy settings | Cookie banner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UI or UX | UI + UX - Eligibility and safety boundary that asks for age, age band, date of birth, verified age, or parent authorization before age-sensitive access, data collection, or content exposure | UI + UX - Specific opt-in decision for optional data use, participation, communication, sharing, or training | UI + UX - Contextual operating-system or browser permission request for device resources, powerful browser features, private user data, or local capabilities | UI + UX - Controlled reveal and re-hiding of masked sensitive values, secrets, tokens, credentials, identifiers, or private records | UI + UX - Durable privacy-control surface for account, product, device, app-access, activity, visibility, and sharing settings | UI + UX - Cookie and tracking consent control |
| UI guidance | Render the age gate as a clear eligibility boundary that states why age is needed, what threshold or age band applies, which answer format is required, and what happens next. | Render a consent prompt as a focused opt-in decision that names the requester, purpose, data involved, optionality, benefit, consequence of declining, withdrawal route, and consent record before the user chooses. | Render a permission request as a contextual feature gate that names the resource, user action, immediate benefit, system prompt timing, available choices, and fallback before invoking the OS or browser permission prompt. | Render sensitive-data reveal as a masked value with an explicit reveal action, visible hide action, clear field identity, safe default state, reveal duration or hold behavior, and status feedback that explains what is visible now. | Render privacy settings as a returnable control surface with current effective values, privacy categories, data types, app or service access, account/device/product scope, source of truth, managed or unavailable reasons, last updated status, and save or immediate-apply feedback. | Render a clearly labelled cookie banner at the top of the document before ordinary page content, with service-specific copy, essential-cookie information, equal accept and reject actions for non-essential purposes, and a link to detailed cookie settings. |
| UX guidance | Use an age gate when the product must adapt, restrict, or verify access because of age-sensitive content, child data protection, app-store rating, regulated features, or parent authorization. | Use consent prompt when the product needs the user to knowingly agree to a specific optional data-processing purpose such as marketing, research participation, AI training, personalization, partner sharing, or sensitive-data use. | Use permission request when a feature needs operating-system or browser authorization for resources such as location, camera, microphone, photos, contacts, notifications, Bluetooth, clipboard, motion sensors, or other powerful features. | Use sensitive-data reveal when users need to verify, compare, copy, rotate, recover, or transcribe a sensitive value that is normally masked or redacted. | Use privacy settings when users need to inspect and change ongoing privacy posture for saved activity, profile visibility, app access, device permissions, data sharing, ad personalization, location, connected apps, or product privacy dashboards. | Use a cookie banner to collect or confirm choices for non-essential cookies, local storage, pixels, service-worker storage, analytics, advertising, personalization, or similar device storage technologies. |
| Good UI | A family app asks a child for an age band, switches to a parent-consent flow for under-13 users, and says which information is collected for the age check. | An AI writing tool asks whether the user wants workspace snippets used to improve future suggestions, shows included data types, keeps the default off, and records the consent version after opt-in. | A field service app asks for location only when the user taps Start route, explains that current location will verify arrival, then opens the system permission prompt and offers manual address entry if declined. | An API key row shows sk_live_****9H2Q by default, requires Reauthenticate before Full reveal, logs the reveal event, and automatically hides after 30 seconds. | An account privacy dashboard groups Saved activity, Profile visibility, Ad personalization, Connected apps, Location history, Device permissions, and Data deletion, with current values, scope labels, last updated times, and unavailable reasons. | A service banner says it uses essential cookies and asks to use analytics cookies, with Accept analytics cookies, Reject analytics cookies, and View cookies controls at the same level. |
| Bad UI | An adult-default button encourages users to lie about their age. | A modal says By continuing you agree to personalized offers and partner sharing, with a large Continue button and a small privacy policy link. | An app asks for location, contacts, photos, and notifications on first launch before the user knows why any resource is needed. | A secret is visible on page load, print, export, screenshot, or shared-screen mode. | A single Privacy mode switch claims to turn everything off but leaves ad personalization, public profile visibility, connected apps, and activity retention unchanged. | A banner says by continuing you accept cookies and fires analytics before any button is clicked. |
| Good UX | An underage user is shown a child-safe version, parent consent route, correction support, and privacy note rather than a dead end that encourages guessing a different birth date. | A user consents to a beta research study, sees what data will be reviewed, receives a saved confirmation, and later withdraws from the account privacy page with the same purpose label. | A user denies precise location, chooses approximate location instead, and the app still shows nearby pickup points with lower accuracy. | A developer needs to rotate a webhook secret, reveals it after step-up verification, copies it with a visible clipboard warning, then sees it auto-hide with an audit ID. | A user pauses saved activity, clears search history for a date range, disables ad personalization, hides birthday visibility, revokes a connected app, and sees which values apply immediately versus after sync. | A user changes their mind from Accept to Reject in cookie settings and optional tracking stops for future page loads. |
| Bad UX | A user denied by an age check can immediately retry unlimited times until they guess an adult birth year. | A user clicks Next to finish onboarding and unknowingly opts into marketing because the consent copy was bundled into the terms paragraph. | A user denies microphone access and the app loops the same system prompt every time they tap anything in the support screen. | A user taps a copied state and the interface silently places a raw token on the clipboard while the token remains hidden on screen. | A user withdraws a consent prompt, but privacy settings still show personalization enabled because the source of truth and sync state are hidden. | Reject only closes the banner while ad pixels and analytics continue firing. |
| Best fit | Age or age band controls whether users may access content, features, commerce, community interaction, personalization, or data collection. | The product needs a user's active agreement for optional data use, marketing, research participation, personalization, partner sharing, AI training, or sensitive-data processing. | A feature needs operating-system, browser, or device authorization to access location, camera, microphone, photos, contacts, notifications, Bluetooth, clipboard, motion sensors, storage access, or another powerful feature. | Users need to inspect, copy, verify, rotate, transcribe, or compare a sensitive value that should normally stay masked or redacted. | Users need ongoing control over personal data collection, saved activity, visibility, app access, device permissions, connected services, data sharing, or personalization. | The service sets non-essential cookies or similar device storage technologies. |
| Avoid when | The question is whether an eligible user consents to optional data use; use consent prompt. | The choice is only about non-essential cookies or device storage; use cookie banner. | The decision is consent to optional data use rather than access to a device or browser resource. | The task is only entering a password into an authentication form; use password input. | The task is a first-time opt-in to one optional purpose; use consent prompt. | The service uses only strictly necessary cookies and can explain them on a cookies page. |
| Required state | Age prompt state with reason, threshold, and input format. | Pre-consent state with optional processing off and the core task still understandable. | Contextual request state tied to the user action that needs the resource. | Masked state with the field identity, safe suffix or count, and reveal eligibility. | Privacy settings overview with categories and current effective values. | Accept non-essential cookies state. |
| Accessibility burden | Label date, month, year, age band, parent email, verification provider, continue, cancel, correction, and appeal controls with the target threshold or action. | Associate every checkbox or toggle with a complete purpose label and consequence description. | Use a labelled region or dialog title that names the resource and feature, such as Allow location for route check-in. | Use a labelled button or toggle whose accessible name includes the field, such as Show API key or Hide account number. | Use clear headings, labels, descriptions, and status text for each privacy category and control. | Label the cookie banner region with the service name so users know which service is asking for the choice. |
| Common misuse | Preselecting Yes, I am over 18 or styling the adult path as the obvious safe answer. | Treating continued use, scrolling, closing, or inactivity as consent. | Asking for multiple resources at launch before the user has attempted the relevant feature. | Showing sensitive values in plain text by default. | Replacing privacy settings with a privacy policy link or legal notice. | Accept-only banners. |