How modern software design principles are transforming classified nomination processes from error-prone manual workflows to intelligent, secure systems 

Security has never been convenient—and for good reason. The stakes are too high, the information too sensitive, and the consequences of failure too severe to prioritize ease over protection. For decades, security professionals have accepted that rigorous processes inherently mean complex, time-consuming workflows filled with potential human error points.

What if we’ve been accepting a false choice?

The Legacy Problem: Security Built Without Human Factors

Walk into any security office today and you’ll witness a paradox: highly trained professionals managing access to the nation’s most sensitive information using archaic tools.

Consider the typical TS/SCI nomination process. Security professionals navigate between local ad-hoc spreadsheets, each with its own formatting quirks interpreted differently between individuals. The process cross-references analog and manually-interpreted forms against various databases, with manual transcription of information across systems, and analysis of ambiguous responses from nominees on legacy forms that were never designed to work with human factors engineering principles.

The current DoD security process ecosystem is clunky and riddled with vulnerability—it actively creates opportunities for the very errors it’s intended to prevent. When a critical form field can be interpreted three different ways, when similar processes require completely different workflows, when the same information must be entered manually across multiple systems, we’re not just accepting inconvenience. We’re accepting unnecessary risk.

Consider communications between industry and government via email. There is no integrated encryption mechanism, so transmission of PII is accomplished with DoD SAFE or clunky work arounds such as password protection on PDF documents. Oftentimes CUI is sent unencrypted, which is a nightmare scenario with hostile foreign actors who may gain access to email servers and scrape it with AI tools.

The Human Factors Engineering Revolution

The aviation industry learned this lesson decades ago. In aircraft cockpits, actions and colors are standardized. Consider a panel where every switch operates in the same direction—up or forward means “on.” Colors have universal meaning—red signals danger, green indicates normal operation. Colors of illuminated instruments are designed for the human eye to ensure optimal night visibility retention. Words and phrases undergo rigorous testing to eliminate misinterpretation. These aren’t conveniences; they’re safety features that reduce cognitive load and minimize human error in high-stakes environments.

This is Human Factors Engineering: designing systems that work with human psychology, behavior, and physical capabilities rather than against them. It’s the science of creating interfaces and workflows that feel intuitive because they align with how people naturally process information, make decisions, and perform physical actions.

Security operations demand the same rigorous approach to human-centered design. When security professionals are managing classified information and access decisions, shouldn’t their tools be engineered to minimize cognitive errors and maximize accuracy while reducing the extra duty workload?

From Manual Processes to Intelligent Workflows

Modern security software doesn’t just digitize old processes with a new process to learn—it reimagines the interface entirely through the lens of human factors engineering. Consider how SCINET approaches the fundamental challenges of TS/SCI nominations:

Eliminating Ambiguous Inputs: Instead of open text fields that must be manually populated and can be interpreted multiple ways, intelligent forms guide users through structured inputs with clear validation. The system doesn’t just accept information; it understands context and flags potential inconsistencies before they become problems.

• Consistent Visual Language: Colors, icons, and interface elements maintain consistent meaning throughout the system. A red indicator always signals the same type of issue, whether you’re reviewing a nomination status or checking compliance requirements. Green consistently indicates completion or approval. This isn’t aesthetic choice—it’s cognitive efficiency.
• Workflow Intelligence: The business logic automatically handles routine tasks that previously required manual intervention. Instead of security professionals remembering to update multiple tracking sheets, set calendar reminders, or manually route documents through email, the system orchestrates these activities seamlessly. This provides total transparency to cognizant parties and frees mental resources for the high-level decision-making that actually requires human expertise.
• Error Prevention, Not Just Detection: Rather than catching mistakes after they happen, human-factors-engineered systems prevent them from occurring. Required fields can’t be skipped. Incompatible selections are flagged immediately. Critical information is presented when and where it’s needed for decision-making.

The Security Professional’s Inbox: A Case Study in Human Factors

Your inbox shouldn’t be a contributor to national security risk, but legacy processes often make it exactly that. When critical information arrives scattered across dozens of emails with inconsistent subject lines, buried attachments, and unclear action items, even experienced professionals can miss crucial details or deadlines.

Modern security software treats your inbox as part of an integrated workflow system because all CUI is handled through the application protected via PKI. Nominations generate structured notifications with clear status indicators. Action items are automatically tracked and escalated appropriately. Instead of hunting through email chains and contacting outside offices or people to understand the current state of a case, security professionals have real-time visibility into every active nomination, debrief, and transfer.

This isn’t about making your job easier—though it does. It’s about making your job more accurate, reducing extra duty workload, improving transparency, and being more focused on the security decisions that require human judgment rather than the administrative tasks that don’t.

Beyond Individual Efficiency: System-Wide Visibility

Human factors engineering in security software creates benefits that extend far beyond individual user experience. When every security professional in your organization uses consistent workflows, when data is captured uniformly, when processes follow predictable patterns, the entire security operation becomes more transparent and manageable.

Senior leadership gains actual visibility into security operations rather than periodic status reports. Bottlenecks become visible before they impact mission timelines. Training gaps can be identified through pattern analysis rather than discovered post-mortem through costly errors. The system becomes self-improving because it generates the data needed to understand and optimize its own performance.

The Paradigm Shift: Security as Strategic Enabler

This transformation represents more than technological upgrade—it’s a fundamental shift in how security operations function within the broader mission. Instead of security being seen as a necessary impediment to operational speed, properly designed systems are streamlined and make security a strategic enabler.

When nomination processes are predictable and efficient, program managers can plan accurately. When security status is visible in real-time, leadership can make informed decisions about resource allocation. When compliance is built into workflows rather than bolted on through manual inspections afterward, entire programs move faster while maintaining higher security standards.

Moving Forward: The Advisory Panel Opportunity

The security community stands at an inflection point. We can continue accepting that rigorous security requires inefficient, error-prone processes, or we can demand that our tools be engineered with the same human factors principles that have revolutionized aviation safety, medical device design, and other high-stakes domains.

This is why we’re establishing an advisory panel of security professionals who understand both the critical importance of rigorous security processes and the complications built into legacy approaches. We’re looking for professionals who can help provide feedback on the development of systems the DoD needs to simplify analog processes.

The question isn’t whether security should be convenient. The question is whether our security tools should be designed to work with human cognition or against it. Whether they should prevent errors or simply catch them afterward. Whether they should free security professionals to focus on judgment and analysis, or continue to burden them with manual administrative tasks.

The technology exists. The human factors engineering principles are proven. What we need now are the security professionals willing to help shape the future of how security administrative operations actually work.

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Ready to be part of the solution? Join our advisory panel and help shape the next generation of security operations software. Your expertise in both security requirements and operational realities is exactly what the DoD security professionals need integrated in the next software upgrade. 

_{* Advisory panel event attendees will be issued SPeD PDU endorsed memorandum for 3-7 PDUs from the project champion depending on event content and duration.}