Usable and lawful: can consent be both?

Under the GDPR, a valid consent must satisfy a number of requirements to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive (ePD). The article evaluates the design of consent banners using a common and popular usability inspection method in human–computer interaction scholarship known as heuristic evaluation, which enables the researcher to identify challenges in technical provision and new generative opportunities for technical systems to better respond to legal requirements. Opportunities, challenges and tensions for a lawful and usable consent are identified through a novel application of usability heuristics to target the intersection of legal requirements and usability in the context of consent banners. These interpretations of the intersection of law and design may aid legal scholars in evaluating the lawfulness and usability of consent design strategies, while acknowledging the tensions and challenges among design and legal perspectives.