Web Design in Minneapolis: A Decision Log for Sites That Say Yes or No Automatically

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

A pre-qualification widget says no, and in Minnesota the person it said no to now has the right to ask why. Web design in Minneapolis for lenders, insurers, health companies and retailers has to account for every automated decision a site makes. Minnesota’s consumer data law gives people the right to question the result of certain profiling and to learn the reason. This page is a decision log: one row per automated decision on your site, with what the page owes the reader. It is for product, legal and marketing leads. Progression is based in New York and serves Minneapolis clients remotely, with on-site sessions on request.

A widget that says no

A visitor enters an income, a zip code and a date of birth. A second later the screen says they are not pre-qualified, and nothing else. No reason, no next step, no way to ask a person.

The screen is invented, but sites like it are common. A short interaction hides a real decision, and the page that shows the decision gives the reader nothing to hold on to. The log on this page lists every such moment on your site.

Web design in Minneapolis under 325M

Chapter 325M of the Minnesota Statutes defines profiling as any form of automated processing of personal data to evaluate, analyze or predict personal aspects related to an identified or identifiable person’s economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or movements. Web design in Minneapolis, MN, for any company that scores visitors lands inside that definition at some point.

The chapter singles out decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. It lists decisions by a controller that result in the provision or denial of financial or lending services, housing, insurance, education enrollment or opportunity, criminal justice, employment opportunities, health care services, or access to essential goods or services.

Section 325M.12 sets who the chapter applies to. A legal entity that conducts business in Minnesota or produces products or services targeted to residents, and that meets a threshold, is covered. One threshold is controlling or processing the personal data of 100,000 consumers or more in a calendar year, not counting data processed only to complete a payment. The other is deriving over 25 percent of gross revenue from the sale of personal data while processing data of 25,000 consumers or more. The chapter excludes small businesses as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration, except that such a business is subject to section 325M.17. It also excludes some kinds of data, such as protected health information under HIPAA. Whether any of this reaches your company is a question for counsel.

The region has plenty of candidates. Greater MSP describes the region as at the epicenter of Medical Alley, home to industry leaders in health insurance, digital health and medical device manufacturing, and Medical Alley says it has more than 800 partner organizations.

Who is this page for?

Product leads who built the widget, legal leads who answer for it and marketing leads who run the pages around it. All three need to see the same list.

The decision log

One row per automated decision on your site. Fill in the second column honestly: if a feature uses personal data to evaluate or predict something about a visitor, it evaluates a person. The rest of the row follows from the answer.

Reading your log: three kinds of row

Sort every row into one of three kinds. The first kind has legal or similarly significant effects and needs the full treatment. The second kind is personalization only, where the person deserves a plain note but not a review process. The third kind is the row nobody can explain, and it is the urgent one.

• Significant rows get a reason page, a review path and an owner.
• Personalization rows get a note and a way to turn the feature off.
• Rows nobody can explain get an investigation before anything else.
• Rows that change get re-sorted when the vendor, the data or the feature changes.

The page a person lands on after a no

This is the page that matters. Under section 325M.14, when personal data is profiled in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, the consumer has the right to question the result, to be informed of the reason that the profiling resulted in the decision and, if feasible, to be informed of what actions the consumer might have taken to secure a different decision and might take in the future.

The same section gives the consumer a right to review the personal data used in the profiling, and, if the decision is found to rest on inaccurate data, to have it corrected and the decision reevaluated. The cards above are the parts of a page that carries those duties.

A path outside the privacy notice

Section 325M.16 says a controller that engages in profiling in furtherance of decisions with legal or similarly significant effects must disclose it in the privacy notice and provide access to a clear and conspicuous method outside the notice to opt out. The chapter says the method may be a link labeled Your Opt-Out Rights or Your Privacy Rights. A footer link and a page behind it are a design job. Whether the duty applies to your company is a question for counsel.

Appeals on the same site

The privacy notice also has to explain the consumer’s rights and how and where to exercise them, including how to appeal a controller’s action on a request. Build the appeal as a form on the same site, with a named team behind it and a stated time to answer. A mailing address alone is not a path.

• Link the explanation page from every screen that shows a result.
• Put the question form on the same page as the reason.
• Send a confirmation with a reference number.
• Record the request, the review and the answer in one place.

What does the privacy notice have to carry?

The privacy notice is where the rest of the duties live. Section 325M.16 says controllers must provide a reasonably accessible, clear and meaningful notice, and lists what it includes. The list is a good checklist for the designer, because each item needs a place on the page.

• The categories of personal data processed.
• The purposes for which each category is processed.
• An explanation of the consumer’s rights and how and where to exercise them, including how to appeal.
• The categories of personal data sold to or shared with third parties, if any.
• The categories of those third parties, if any.
• The controller’s contact information, including an active email address or other online mechanism.
• A description of retention policies for personal data.
• The date the notice was last updated.

The same section says the notice must be available in each language in which the controller provides the product or service, and must be reasonably accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. Those are design requirements as much as legal ones. Ask counsel what your notice must say.

Which rows should be fixed first?

Not every row has the same urgency. Start where a person can be hurt most and where the least is written down.

• Rows with a legal or similarly significant effect and no reason page.
• Rows run by a vendor with no written explanation.
• Rows nobody on staff can describe.
• Rows that handle health, lending or insurance data.
• Rows that screen job applicants.
• Rows that changed in the last quarter and have not been re-sorted.

• Fix the oldest row before the newest one.
• Fix the cheapest row in the same sitting.

What if nobody can say how a feature decides?

Stop and find out before the page is designed. A feature whose logic is unknown cannot be explained to a visitor, and it is exactly the case the law’s explanation right is aimed at.

Who answers the question when a person asks?

A named team, with a stated time to reply and a way to escalate. The designer builds the form, but the answer comes from a person who can read the data and correct it.

What a decision log costs to build

A decision log by itself is a document. The cost sits in the pages and the forms it calls for: the explanation page, the review request, the opt-out link and the connection to whoever answers. Any Minneapolis web design company can price those once the log exists.

Bands for regulated sites

The bands run from the typical low to the published high for each kind of work.

How Progression prices a site

Our website design and development page publishes fixed-scope prices, shown as price from.

Minneapolis website design when the engine belongs to a vendor

Many sites rent their scoring from a vendor. The decision is made on someone else’s server, and the explanation lives in someone else’s system. You still face the person who was told no. Minneapolis website design for these firms starts with a contract that makes the explanation reachable.

If the explanation comes from a portal or a data feed, see web portal development for how to bring it onto your own pages. For sites that handle health information, the separate privacy questions are on our healthcare website design page.

A website designer in Minneapolis, and a log kept current

A website designer in Minneapolis, MN, who builds sites for regulated firms should expect the log to change. New forms appear, vendors update their engines, and the law gets amended. A quarterly check keeps the log true.

Put one person’s name on the log. Without a name, nobody updates it, and a log that is two years old is worse than none because it looks like an answer. See website design and development for how we plan ongoing care.

Web design companies in Minneapolis and a one page explanation

Web design companies in Minneapolis will each tell you they understand regulated sites. A quick test is to ask each one to write a one page explanation for a declined applicant. A sample, invented for this page, shows the shape.

Ask each firm to write its own, using your features. Minneapolis web design companies that struggle with the exercise have not thought about the pages the law calls for. Compare the answers side by side, and ask counsel to read the one you like.

Does this apply to a small site that only recommends products?

Product recommendations rarely produce a legal or similarly significant effect, so the explanation duty may not apply. Log them anyway, because the same inputs can feed a feature that does matter, and ask counsel if you are unsure.

If your search is broader than websites, we also run marketing in Minneapolis and SEO across Minnesota.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this log:

• Website design and development
• Web portal development
• Healthcare website design
• Minneapolis marketing agency
• SEO company in Minnesota
• Web design by city

Frequently asked questions