Recipe: KYC onboarding flow design

1. Entry point

Gate the flow behind a clear CTA. Show a progress indicator immediately — users who see “Step 1 of 4” are 34% more likely to complete. Collect email first; defer document upload until trust is established.

2. Document capture

Accept passport, driver’s license, or national ID. Use the device camera with an overlay guide frame. Auto-capture when the document is aligned and in focus — never force a manual shutter button. Compress to WebP before upload to keep the payload under 2 MB.

3. Liveness check

Prompt a short head movement (left-right or blink). Record a 5-second video clip. Run passive liveness server-side to avoid client-side spoofing. Surface a clear retry path if the check fails — never dead-end the user.

4. Review & submit

Show extracted fields (name, DOB, document number) for confirmation. Allow one-tap correction. On submit, return a deterministic status page with an estimated review time. Send a confirmation email with a reference ID.

5. Edge cases

• →Expired documents — reject early with a clear reason and a link to re-upload.
• →Low-light environment — detect via luminance histogram and prompt the user to move to brighter conditions.
• →Network loss mid-upload — persist form state to sessionStorage and resume on reconnect.