Authentication Experience Redesign
Reducing login friction across email, WhatsApp and authenticator-based verification flows.
Role
Senior Product Designer
Industry
Private Banking
Duration
3 months
My role
Led end-to-end UX for the authentication redesign
Facilitated discovery and solution workshops
Partnered with product, engineering and security teams
Defined interaction patterns, prototypes and validation
Supported rollout and post-launch measurement
The problem
Authentication is a critical moment in the customer journey — especially in private banking, where trust and reliability are non-negotiable. Through support tickets, internal feedback, and FullStory session recordings, we identified recurring friction in the OTP flow that was consistently affecting the login experience.
The flow required users to manually trigger OTP delivery by clicking a separate "Get Code" button — a step that was easy to miss. Combined with email delivery times that sometimes exceeded four minutes, and occasional non-delivery, users were frequently unable to complete login without contacting support.
The problem was well-documented enough to align the team around the need for redesign.
Discovery
We combined multiple sources to understand the problem: support ticket analysis, internal team feedback, user research sessions, and session recordings reviewed in FullStory. The findings consistently pointed to the same friction point — the OTP trigger step — which helped build alignment across product, engineering, and security teams around the need for redesign.
Competitor benchmarking across private banking and broader financial services informed the solution direction, particularly around authentication channel options and OTP input patterns.
Results
Facilitated user testing with a diverse group of app users, gathering insightful feedback on the redesign. This phase was crucial in identifying unforeseen usability issues and validating the effectiveness of the new design elements. Iterative refinements were made based on this feedback, fine-tuning the app's interface to maximize user satisfaction and engagement.
Stage 5. Implementation & Launch Support
Collaborated closely with the development team to ensure a smooth transition from design to implementation. Provided ongoing support and guidance during the development phase, addressing any design-related challenges that arose. Played a key role in the app's successful relaunch, monitoring user feedback and engagement post-launch to inform future updates.
Reflections
This project reinforced that authentication is not just a technical requirement — it is a trust moment. In private banking, how a customer feels during login shapes how they perceive the entire product. Small interaction decisions can have outsized effects on confidence, particularly when the stakes are high.
Working closely with product, engineering, and security teams also reinforced the importance of aligning early on constraints. Authentication touches compliance and security requirements that directly influence design decisions — understanding those boundaries from the start made the collaboration more effective.
If I were starting again, I would prioritize setting up measurement before launch. When the redesign shipped, we did not have a pre-launch login success rate to compare against. Establishing baseline metrics earlier would have made it easier to demonstrate the full impact of the work.
