B2C | Digital Idenity | Fintech
AuthNumber: Designing Trust and Control in India's Digital Identity Ecosystem
Overview
Role: Principal UX Designer
Company: AuthBridge
Sector: Digital Idenity, SaaS
Duration: 6 months
About iBridge
AuthBridge’s iBridge is a globally trusted employee background screening platform, supporting over 3,000 companies across 140 countries and managing 5 million monthly verifications. Facing UX challenges due to outdated technology and design, the platform required a complete redesign to enhance user satisfaction, efficiency, and transparency.
1.1 The Challenge
Modernizing Verification in Digital India
India's digital infrastructure, including Aadhaar and DigiLocker, provides a strong foundation for identity. However, the process of verifying specific credentials – such as employment history, educational qualifications, or skills – remains largely fragmented and inefficient. For individuals, this means repeatedly locating, sharing (often insecurely via scans or physical copies), and waiting for verification of documents for jobs, loans, or other critical services.
For organizations, including AuthBridge's clients relying on background verification, current methods often involve manual checks, disparate data sources, and significant processing time, leading to operational friction, potential fraud risks, and delays in onboarding talent or customers. While foundational ID exists, there's a clear need for a standardized, secure, user-controlled way to manage and instantly share verified credentials, enhancing trust and efficiency across the ecosystem. AuthBridge identified an opportunity to leverage its expertise in background verification to address this gap directly.
1.2 The Vision
AuthNumber - Empowering Users, Streamlining Verification
AuthNumber was conceptualized by AuthBridge as a strategic initiative to redefine digital identity and credential management in India. It is envisioned as a user-centric mobile identity wallet.
Core Vision: To empower Indian citizens with a secure, unified platform where they can receive, store, and manage their verified credentials (issued by trusted organizations) and control how this information is shared with granular precision. Strategic Importance for AuthBridge: AuthNumber aims to significantly enhance the speed, security, and user experience of verification processes, complementing AuthBridge's existing BGV leadership. It seeks to establish a trusted digital ecosystem, reduce fraud, streamline client onboarding, and position AuthBridge at the forefront of identity innovation in India.
1.3 My Role
Principal Designer & Strategist
As the Lead Designer driving the AuthNumber mobile wallet initiative within AuthBridge, my responsibilities focused on the end-user experience, spanning the design lifecycle and strategic definition:
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Problem Definition & Research Leadership: Conducting foundational user research (citizens) and market analysis specific to the Indian context to deeply understand user pain points with credential management and verification.
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Strategic Design & Vision: Translating user needs and AuthBridge's strategic objectives into a clear product vision for the AuthNumber mobile wallet, defining core design principles.
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End-to-End UX/UI Design (Mobile App, Issuer and verifier desktop app): Owning all design phases for the user-facing mobile application: research synthesis, information architecture, interaction design, visual design, prototyping, and usability testing.
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Cross-Functional Collaboration: Working closely with AuthBridge product managers, engineers, and verification experts to ensure design feasibility and alignment with the company's technical infrastructure and business goals.
1.2 The Vision
As the Principal UX Designer, I led the project from initial research and strategy formulation to final UI delivery, managing stakeholder collaboration, aligning user needs with business objectives, and ensuring a user-centric design approach.
Understanding the landscape
Deep Dive Research & Synthesis
2.1 User & Market Research
We used a mix of methods (interviews with 25 users, survey with 40 participants, market analysis) in early 2025 to understand the core issues:
Document Mess
85% People keep important documents scattered (physical, email, cloud), making them hard to find.
Sharing Worries
70% Users are concerned about security when sharing full document copies
Need for Control
90% Users strongly want control over exactly what data they share
Trust is the Key
Linking with trusted sources like Aadhaar/DigiLocker is crucial.
Why i need to share my whole Aadhaar for just my address?
Ravikanth Hegde
45, Male, Bussinesman
The Solution
Authnumber Digital Identity
AuthNumber ID Wallet
A user-centric Authnumber app providing:
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One Secure Place: For all verified digital credentials (work, education, IDs).
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Complete Control: Users decide exactly what data to share, when,
and with whom. -
Instant Verification: Enabling faster, trusted checks.
Communication patterns
Paired with our progressive experience, we designed a suite of communication patterns to assist customers with their verification, communicate complex concepts or help with errors.
Motion as a guide
Wherever possible, we used motion to guide attention, highlight key areas, and add moments of delight for users. It helped us bring a sense of playfulness, while also celebrating milestones and reinforcing a feeling of accomplishment.
connecting customers and businesses
For Customers
In India, while Aadhaar provides foundational ID, verifying specific credentials for jobs or services still typically requires submitting multiple documents (PAN, degrees, etc.). Users often must share these entire documents, raising privacy concerns as it's unclear precisely what data is needed or stored. To address this, AuthNumber was designed around user control: it clarifies requirements and uses explicit permissions, ensuring only the specific details needed are shared digitally, keeping sensitive information private.
For Businesses
Our SDK made leveraging preset government verification standards really easy. Choose the verification level you needed and you're all set. To accompany that simplicity, we designed a stepper pattern that explained the tasks involved and what was completed.
To reduce abandonment and churn, customers could resume their verification at a later time. Useful when verification required in person confirmation or customers didn't have the required documents on them.
Enabling Trust
The AuthNumber Issuer Platform
The AuthNumber Issuer Platform (Desktop)
To ensure the credentials users manage in their AuthNumber wallet are authentic and secure, AuthBridge developed a dedicated desktop platform for verified credential issuers (like companies, universities, training centers)
Design Credentials
Use an intuitive Template Designer to create standardized, branded digital credential layouts.
Issue Flexibly
Generate credentials individually
for specific recipients or perform bulk issuance efficiently (e.g., uploading a list for graduating students or new hires).
Manage & Track
Access a dashboard to review issued credentials, monitor their status (e.g., accepted, revoked), and maintain audit trails.
Impact, Learning & Future
Value Delivered
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Users: Gain control, privacy, and convenience.
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Businesses (Verifiers): Get faster, reliable verification.
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Issuers: Benefit from efficient, secure digital credentialing.
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AuthBridge: Strengthens market leadership and innovation.
Key Learning
Keep local context (India Stack) is vital. Privacy is non-negotiable. Balancing robust security (like Blockchain) with user experience requires continuous effort.
Next Steps
Launch pilot programs for the entire ecosystem (user wallet, issuer platform, verifier tools). Gather real-world feedback, expand credential types, and add features based on user and issuer needs.
The Complete Ecosystem
The AuthNumber Mobile Wallet is empowered by the secure Credential Issuer Platform and complemented by Verifier Applications/SDKs, creating a trusted, end-to-end digital credential solution by AuthBridge.