Virgo — KYC & Liveness Verification

01Impact first

Reworking Virgo's KYC and liveness flows lifted verification success by 80% and raised user trust scores — removing the single biggest drop-off point in wallet activation. The flow became one of the pillars behind Virgo's Google Play Best of 2022 (Best Everyday Essentials) award.

02The problem

To fight fraud during account creation, we had to prove users were real people — not static or manipulated photos. But the existing flow was working against us:
- Users wearing masks or hats dropped face-match accuracy to 70–79%
- Instruction pages were unclear and inconsistent, killing user confidence
- Pandemic-era remote onboarding made every extra step a churn risk

03What I led

As design lead I owned the end-to-end strategy: competitive benchmarking of GoPay, OVO, DANA, LinkAja and ShopeePay; the decision to adopt a streamlined 3-step flow (eKTP scan → liveness → confirmation); and the redesign of every instruction screen with clear do/don't illustrations, revised color usage, and system feedback labels.

The key trade-off: we removed the selfie step entirely in phase 2, moving to an AAI tech stack (OCR, liveness, face match, Privy integration). Fewer steps, higher integrity.

04Validation

We tested with 33 participants on a Maze prototype across 4 missions:
- 81.8% followed the expected flow path unaided
- 25 of 28 understood instruction pages clearly, in ~7 seconds average reading time
- Users preferred the design variant that felt more responsive
- Accessibility feedback (e.g., users with glasses) was logged for the next iteration

05Reflection

Liveness checks aren't just technical — they're emotional touchpoints where users ask "will I be accepted?" Grounding decisions in benchmarks and real user feedback made Virgo's onboarding feel faster, safer, and more human.