eBay: Identity Verification

eBay loses over $20000 per week on failed ID verification submissions. Implementing an end-to-end app user-experience decreased failed ID verifications by 85%, saving eBay thousands of dollars per day and is helping eBay become a safer marketplace for consumers.

OVERVIEW

To keep eBay a safe and trusted marketplace, an ID verification user-experience must be implement on the eBay app.

eBay spends about $4000 per day on avoidable errors in the desktop ID verification process. By prioritizing error-free usability, improving UX/UI, and providing real time feedback, we can minimize failed verifications and strengthen trust in the eBay marketplace.

ROLE

UX Designer working with a team of fellow designers, software engineers, PMs, and stakeholders.

METHODS AND TOOLS

  • Heuristic Analysis

  • Competitive and Comparative Analysis

  • Journey Map

  • User Flow

  • Usability Testing

  • OCR

  • Responsive Design

  • eBay Design System

  • Wireframe and Prototyping

  • Tools: Figma, Monday.com, Pen + Paper

DURATION

1 Quarter

Solution Overview

An intuitive ID upload user experience that guides users in submitting IDs — resulting in clear findings.

The new, clear Identity Verification process allows eBay to avoid soft errors and decisively verify credible sellers and remove unwanted bad actors.

Identity Verification “Happy Path”

Personal Impact

Analysis of the following quarter showed immediate promising results. There was a significant decrease in “soft fails” where ID's were either too blurry, dark, out of frame, or bad quality. In addition, there was a spike in new verified users, showing that the new ID verification process on the eBay app was a big improvement from the outdated Web experience.

My design process led to many key features such as the list view, camera mode view, directional text, and error states. The UI and user experience all rooted from the project mission — guiding users to an error and resistance-free ID verification process. With the mission in mind, I spearheaded the UI improvements through C&C analysis, iteration and user-testing.

Reflection

This project got picked up really fast, and quickly became a challenge. It was a great opportunity for me to improve my adaptability in real time and I hope to continue to evolve as a designer and person everyday. 

  1. Visual options are useful for communication and alignment on a tech team. It’s one thing to talk and discuss ideas, but with every new addition to a team, synced understanding is difficult. Whether it’s another designer, engineer, or pm, visuals help fuel conversation and help different types of learners/thinkers in meetings. This leads to successful growth from each check in/design review.

  2. Be adaptable and focus on scalability. It wasn’t clear what capabilities the engineers were able to provide, so it was important to be cautious of design debt. If live-feedback and auto-capture were possible, it was important to be steps ahead where engineering features didn’t drastically effect the user flow or the design. Thus, I designed the UI with flexible and adaptable frameworks.

For Next Steps, with the development of future enhancements such as OCR and auto-capture, we can improve the user experience of the camera mode. The current design is adaptable, allowing the implementation to be seamless. User-testing will be helpful to show if the feature enhancements are helpful or hinder the ID upload process.

In addition, creating a responsive design for the web, tablet, and mobile web will increase opportunities for creating more verified sellers. Creating parity across platforms will help eBay continue to grow into a safe and trustworthy marketplace.