Improving how businesses submit KYC evidence

Designing a secure self-service journey for business customers to authenticate and submit supporting evidence online.

Role

Sole UX/UI Designer

Timeline

April–June 2026

Team

Product Owner, Business Analyst, UX Researcher, Copywriter and KYC agents

Tools

Figma

Overview

Barclays periodically asks business customers to confirm their details and provide evidence as part of its Know Your Customer process.

The existing process relied on letters, forms and manual follow-up. Response rates were below 20%, creating additional work for KYC agents and increasing the risk of accounts being restricted or closed when customers did not respond.

The project aimed to create a secure self-service portal where customers could authenticate and submit their evidence online.

The Challenge

Customers received details of the evidence they needed to provide by email before entering the portal. The experience therefore needed to create a clear connection between the request and the upload journey without repeating information that the portal could not access.

It also needed to account for:

  • First-time and returning authentication

  • Multi-factor authentication

  • Secure password creation

  • Multiple file uploads

  • File validation and transfer failures

  • Final submission and confirmation

  • Maximum attempts and service errors

  • Secure session timeouts

  • Desktop and mobile use

The challenge was to make a security-sensitive journey feel trustworthy and manageable while supporting customers through unsuccessful as well as successful scenarios.

My Role

As the sole UX/UI designer, I owned the responsive customer experience across authentication and document submission.

I was responsible for the end-to-end journey, interaction design, prototyping, validation, exception scenarios and final desktop and mobile interfaces. I worked with the product owner, business analyst, copywriter and KYC agents to clarify the requirements, and partnered with a UX researcher to plan and evaluate the final prototype with business customers.

Approach

1. Understand the existing process

I reviewed the business requirements, discovery findings and stakeholder wireframes to understand the existing KYC process and the proposed portal.

The initial direction covered the main screens but did not fully connect authentication, document upload, final submission and recovery. I identified the different customer and system states that the complete journey needed to support.

KYC Discovery

1. Understand the existing process

I reviewed the business requirements, discovery findings and stakeholder wireframes to understand the existing KYC process and the proposed portal.

The initial direction covered the main screens but did not fully connect authentication, document upload, final submission and recovery. I identified the different customer and system states that the complete journey needed to support.

KYC Discovery

2. Map the complete journey

I created a master flow connecting temporary-password login, multi-factor authentication, permanent-password creation and document submission.

The flow covered first-time and returning customers alongside incorrect credentials, unsuccessful authentication, invalid passwords, upload failures, maximum attempts, submission errors and session timeouts.

Mapping these scenarios together helped establish how customers would move through the service beyond the successful journey.

KYC Master Flow

2. Map the complete journey

I created a master flow connecting temporary-password login, multi-factor authentication, permanent-password creation and document submission.

The flow covered first-time and returning customers alongside incorrect credentials, unsuccessful authentication, invalid passwords, upload failures, maximum attempts, submission errors and session timeouts.

Mapping these scenarios together helped establish how customers would move through the service beyond the successful journey.

KYC Master Flow

3. Develop the responsive experience

I translated the flow into detailed desktop and mobile designs using established Barclays design-system components.

The designs incorporated accepted file formats, maximum file sizes, validation, loading, success and failure states. I also explored how multiple uploaded files, error messages and primary actions would adapt.

Responsive Design

3. Develop the responsive experience

I translated the flow into detailed desktop and mobile designs using established Barclays design-system components.

The designs incorporated accepted file formats, maximum file sizes, validation, loading, success and failure states. I also explored how multiple uploaded files, error messages and primary actions would adapt.

Responsive Design

4. Prototype and evaluate the journey

I connected the authentication and document-upload flows into an interactive prototype for the final customer research.

Working with the UX researcher, I helped define the tasks and areas of focus. We evaluated the journey with eight business customers, concentrating on independent completion, the transition from email to portal, successful file upload and understanding of when the overall KYC response had been submitted.

4. Prototype and evaluate the journey

I connected the authentication and document-upload flows into an interactive prototype for the final customer research.

Working with the UX researcher, I helped define the tasks and areas of focus. We evaluated the journey with eight business customers, concentrating on independent completion, the transition from email to portal, successful file upload and understanding of when the overall KYC response had been submitted.

Key Decisions

Help customers create a secure password without trial and error

Customers needed to create a permanent password that met several security requirements. Displaying those requirements only after submission would have made the screen simpler, but could have resulted in repeated failed attempts.

I displayed the password requirements before submission and provided feedback as each condition was met. Field-level validation identified specific problems, such as an unmet requirement or passwords that did not match.

This introduced more information to the screen, but helped customers correct errors without repeatedly submitting their password.

Help customers create a secure password without trial and error

Customers needed to create a permanent password that met several security requirements. Displaying those requirements only after submission would have made the screen simpler, but could have resulted in repeated failed attempts.

I displayed the password requirements before submission and provided feedback as each condition was met. Field-level validation identified specific problems, such as an unmet requirement or passwords that did not match.

This introduced more information to the screen, but helped customers correct errors without repeatedly submitting their password.

Connect the email request to the upload journey

Technical limitations and the delivery timeline meant the documents requested in the customer’s KYC email could not also be displayed within the portal. Customers therefore needed to refer to the email while uploading their evidence.

I designed the portal to support this handover by allowing customers to add multiple files and review their filenames before submission. File formats and size limits were shown beside the upload control to help prevent avoidable errors.

This provided a practical way to support different evidence requests without presenting information that might conflict with the customer’s email.

Connect the email request to the upload journey

Technical limitations and the delivery timeline meant the documents requested in the customer’s KYC email could not also be displayed within the portal. Customers therefore needed to refer to the email while uploading their evidence.

I designed the portal to support this handover by allowing customers to add multiple files and review their filenames before submission. File formats and size limits were shown beside the upload control to help prevent avoidable errors.

This provided a practical way to support different evidence requests without presenting information that might conflict with the customer’s email.

Separate file upload from final request submission

As the portal did not hold the customer’s complete evidence request, it could not reliably determine whether every required document had been provided. Customers needed to compare their uploaded files with the requirements in their email before submitting.

I treated uploading files and submitting the overall response as distinct stages. Each file displayed its upload progress, a green tick when successful, or an inline error with the option to try again.

After the files had uploaded, the journey made clear that the customer still needed to submit their overall response. A loading message confirmed that submission was in progress, while separate failure and confirmation screens communicated whether it had succeeded.

The final screen used ‘submitted’ without suggesting that the documents had been approved, as they still needed to be reviewed by a KYC agent.

This prevented a successful file upload from being mistaken for completion of the customer’s overall KYC task.

Separate file upload from final request submission

As the portal did not hold the customer’s complete evidence request, it could not reliably determine whether every required document had been provided. Customers needed to compare their uploaded files with the requirements in their email before submitting.

I treated uploading files and submitting the overall response as distinct stages. Each file displayed its upload progress, a green tick when successful, or an inline error with the option to try again.

After the files had uploaded, the journey made clear that the customer still needed to submit their overall response. A loading message confirmed that submission was in progress, while separate failure and confirmation screens communicated whether it had succeeded.

The final screen used ‘submitted’ without suggesting that the documents had been approved, as they still needed to be reviewed by a KYC agent.

This prevented a successful file upload from being mistaken for completion of the customer’s overall KYC task.

Design Solutions

Outcome & Reflection

Outcome

Final prototype research with eight business customers found that:

  • Seven of eight completed the end-to-end authentication and document journey without assistance.

  • Eight of eight understood that successfully uploading a file did not mean their complete KYC response had been submitted.

  • Seven of eight uploaded their files successfully on the first attempt.

The findings indicated that the final journey was usable and that customers understood the distinction between uploading individual files and submitting their overall response.

Feedback from customers and KYC agents was positive, and the project has now progressed into development.

As these findings came from prototype research rather than the live service, customer response rates, submission quality and operational contact will need to be measured after launch.

Reflection

This project strengthened my ability to design a secure service across connected customer and system states rather than focusing only on the successful journey.

One limitation was that customers still needed to move between their KYC email and the portal to understand what evidence to provide. I would have preferred to show a tailored list of requested documents within the portal, but this was not possible within the technical constraints and delivery timeline.

In a future iteration, I would explore bringing this information into the portal so customers could understand and complete the request in one place. As the project moves through development, I would also test the working experience, particularly authentication recovery, upload failures and session timeouts.

← PREVIOUS

Saving with round-ups

Lets create better experiences

I'm always open to new UX opportunties, exciting challenges and teams where I can contribute and continue to grow.

Get in touch

Lets create better experiences

I'm always open to new UX opportunties, exciting challenges and teams where I can contribute and continue to grow.

Get in touch

Lets create better experiences

I'm always open to new UX opportunties, exciting challenges and teams where I can contribute and continue to grow.

Get in touch