The Problem
When I joined the project, the onboarding completion rate sat at 52%. Users were dropping off at the identity verification step — a critical but friction-heavy moment in the flow. The existing design had evolved through patches rather than intention, and it showed.
The brief was deceptively simple: make it better. The real challenge was understanding why "better" meant different things to compliance, growth, and the end user simultaneously.
"The goal wasn't just to reduce clicks — it was to reduce anxiety at a moment where trust is everything."
Discovery & Research
I ran 18 moderated usability sessions, analysed 3 months of session recordings, and mapped exit points against support ticket themes. Three core pain points emerged consistently:
- Unclear progress signalling — users didn't know how far through the flow they were
- Opaque error states — failures gave no actionable guidance
- Expectation mismatch — users were surprised by what documents were required
Design Approach
Rather than redesigning in isolation, I embedded with the compliance and growth teams to understand the non-negotiables and find the real latitude for design. The ID verification step needed to stay — but how we framed it, timed it, and communicated it was entirely up for rethinking.
After three rounds of low-fidelity prototyping and concept testing, we landed on a progressive disclosure model: surface only what's needed at each step, with persistent clarity about what's coming.
Outcome
After launch, onboarding completion improved to 86% — a 34% lift. Verification-step drop-off fell by 51%. Support tickets relating to the onboarding flow dropped by 40% in the first month.
More importantly, qualitative feedback shifted: users described the process as "surprisingly easy" and "actually explained well" — a signal that the tone and framing changes had landed.