Recover From Identity Verification Failure
Design a verification recovery flow that explains what can be corrected, protects submitted data, and offers a fair alternative review route.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
Identity checks can fail because of glare, damaged documents, name differences, unsupported documents, accessibility needs, or service errors. Repeating the same capture without useful guidance wastes attempts and can unfairly lock people out.
User context
Fatima is verifying an account with a valid passport. Her profile uses her married name, the passport uses her prior surname, and two selfie attempts failed in low light.
Product problem
A person needs specific, privacy-conscious recovery choices while the service must prevent unlimited probing and route legitimate mismatches to accountable review.
Objective
Create failure explanation, corrective retry, document-mismatch handling, and manual-review tracking for one identity check.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Understand which verification step failed and what can be changed
- Correct capture conditions or choose another supported method
- Explain a legitimate name mismatch with appropriate evidence
- Submit for review and track access restrictions and response timing
Screens and states
- Verification result
- Guided recapture
- Mismatch resolution
- Manual review status
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Fatima sees that face capture quality failed while document authenticity was not rejected
- 02
She follows lighting and camera-position guidance for one assisted retry
- 03
The service then flags the surname mismatch and offers an evidence route
- 04
She submits a marriage certificate through a protected upload
- 05
The review status explains temporary account limits, data retention, and the next update time
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Differentiate capture quality, unsupported evidence, data mismatch, service failure, and final decision
- Provide actionable retry guidance without revealing abuse-detection thresholds
- Offer accessible alternatives for camera, motion, vision, and document barriers
- Explain why each additional document is requested and how long it is retained
- Give manual reviews a receipt, owner, service target, and escalation route
Constraints
- Verification vendors may return incomplete or delayed failure reasons
- Sensitive images must not remain in ordinary support attachments
- Retry limits and available documents vary by risk and region
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four responsive screens showing a recoverable capture failure, name mismatch, and manual review
If you want more
Optional extensions
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.
Theory to review
UX principles for this brief
Use these as decision lenses, then validate the design with the people and context in the brief.
