Account Security & Verification
As a global auction platform, Ritchie Bros. needed to strengthen account security while supporting different verification requirements across its markets.
The project focused on introducing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to better protect customer accounts, along with Know Your Customer (KYC) verification for users in markets with additional identity and compliance requirements. These verification steps needed to be integrated into the account creation and bidding experience, making them an important part of how customers gained access to the platform and became eligible to bid.
The challenge was to introduce these added layers of security without creating unnecessary friction for customers trying to create an account, sign in, manage their information, and ultimately participate in an auction.
Due to the complexity of the project, I prioritized user flows before moving into interface design. With multiple account types, verification requirements, user states, and possible outcomes, it was important to understand how each journey connected before designing individual screens.
The flows helped map key decision points, identify required screens and states, and uncover edge cases that needed to be accounted for. They became the foundation for both the MFA and KYC experiences as the project moved into high-fidelity design.
Mapping the Experience
With the user flows established, I moved directly into high-fidelity design, translating the different account states and verification paths into a clear and consistent MFA experience.
Using the new and evolving Ritchie Bros. design system and consulting with the Design Systems team, I designed the experience to support the new requirements introduced by MFA. This included enrolment, verification, managing phone numbers, sensitive account changes, and the various success, error, and recovery states users could encounter.
Designing Multi-Factor Authentication
“Know Your Customer”
Alongside MFA, Ritchie Bros. also needed to introduce Know Your Customer (KYC) verification for users in markets with additional identity and compliance requirements.
The KYC experience needed to support both personal and business accounts, guiding customers through the information and documentation required to verify their identity and become eligible to bid. This included government-issued identification, business information, ownership details, and additional compliance checks where required.
Since the process could involve several steps and unfamiliar requirements, I focused on making the experience clear and easy to follow by explaining what information was needed, why it was being requested, and what customers could expect next.
Once the high-fidelity designs were established, I created interactive prototypes to connect the individual screens and demonstrate how the MFA and KYC experiences would work from end to end.
The prototypes helped bring the user flows to life, allowing key interactions, transitions, decision points, and edge cases to be experienced in context rather than reviewed as static screens. They also provided a clearer way to communicate the intended behaviour of the experience across different user scenarios.
Prototyping & Project Status
The project was still in progress when my role at Ritchie Bros. ended as part of company-wide layoffs. At that point, the MFA and KYC experiences had progressed through detailed user flows, high-fidelity design, and prototyping, but had not yet reached implementation. The designs shown here represent the state of the experience at that time and may continue to evolve as the project moves forward.