FEATURED CASE STUDY

Improving a Self-Guided Fingerprinting System

Redesigning a compliance-driven, high-trust workflow used at national scale.

About the Product

Sterling Identity Fingerprinting is a secure, biometric identity verification system that uses custom fingerprint capture kiosks deployed in retail locations nationwide. The system supports business background and security checks, as well as individuals seeking Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes such as professional certification, work or study abroad, adoption, and other official needs. The platform was developed and is operated by Sterling Identity, a division of Sterling.

About the Product

The Goal

Enable individuals to complete a sensitive, regulated fingerprint capture process independently, accurately, and with confidence—while reducing reliance on in-person guidance and customer support.

My Role

Lead UX Designer responsible for improving the self-guided kiosk experience, identifying failure points, and collaborating with engineering to redesign system feedback and guidance within strict hardware and regulatory constraints.

Key Insights

Most user failures were not caused by interface complexity, but by missing system feedback during biometric capture.

The third-party fingerprint capture hardware returned detailed issue codes that were not surfaced in the kiosk UI. When capture failed, users received little to no actionable feedback—leading to confusion, repeated attempts, and increased calls to customer support.

Translating machine-level error states into clear, human-readable guidance became the highest-leverage UX opportunity.

Impact

Reduced fingerprinting-related support calls by 17%
Improved successful self-service completion of fingerprint capture
Reduced burden on on-site guides and customer service teams
Established a reusable pattern for system-level feedback across the platform

My Challenge

Improve a live, production biometric kiosk—already deployed nationwide—to support a more self-guided experience, while working within the constraints of custom hardware, third-party devices, and strict compliance requirements.

Users

Primary users: Individuals completing fingerprint capture for employment, licensing, or legal purposes.
Secondary stakeholders: On-site retail guides, customer service and support teams

Constraints

Custom hardware paired with third-party fingerprint capture devices
Regulated biometric and identity verification requirements
Existing production system with active users
Need to closely emulate third-party capture processes while improving usability

My Process

Onboarded to an existing live system through team interviews, requirements review, and hands-on testing
Interviewed customer service teams to identify frequent failure points and user confusion patterns
Synthesized findings and aligned with product and engineering on high-impact improvements
Prioritized on-screen feedback as the most critical issue
Collaborated with engineers to surface and translate fingerprint capture error codes into actionable UI feedback
Redesigned key moments in the capture flow, adding clear guidance, troubleshooting steps, and optional short demonstration videos
Validated changes internally and supported release of the refined experience