Nobody Wants to Prove Who They Are: Designing identity UX that people don't hate

Every day, tens of millions of people are asked to prove who they are before they can access something they need – a GP appointment, a bank account, a benefit payment.

Unlike many digital experiences, identity UX can’t be made “delightful”. The friction is the point. So what does good design actually look like when you can’t remove the barrier, only make it less painful?

What the talk covers:

• Why identity and authentication UX breaks the rules of conventional user-centred design.
• How the words on screen determine whether users succeed, retry, or give up entirely.
• Insights and data from NHS login – one of the world’s largest identity verification systems, with 44 million users – showing exactly where users fail and what design interventions can fix.
• The language of trust: how to communicate “you need to prove you are” without making users feel suspected, surveilled or punished.
• Why bad error messages don’t just frustrate users – they generate support tickets, increase operational costs, and erode trust.
• What the shift from passwords to passkeys means for identity UX.

Why now?

Identity is absolutely key to a business’s daily functioning and security. Passkeys, biometrics, AI fraud detection, AI agents, and changing standards are redefining authentication.

Building on our crucial work designing one of the country’s most complex and higly adopted public identity platforms, NHS login, Hippo’s practitioners will share valuable insights on implementing design that is seamless and secure.