Verification flow redesign that increased conversion by 5.3%
Company
My Role
Sole designer
Team
PM, product director, verifications team, advocates, engineering, CPO
Platform
Responsive web
Timeline
3-4 weeks
Responsibilities
Define scope
Design direction
Research
Interaction design
Visual design
Prototyping
Overview
Carvana makes buying a car online easy. You can choose a car, check out easily, and never talk to a salesperson.
But many financing customers struggled to complete their purchase. Before an order can move forward, customers must upload income and address documents.
We didn’t clearly explain what “acceptable” documents looked like. As a result, customers uploaded the wrong files, cut-off pages, or documents missing key details.
This led to order delays, extra work for advocates, and sometimes lost sales.
The original project brief focused on improving the document upload UI. However, after reviewing user sessions and verification policies, I realized the real problem went beyond visual design.
I was the sole designer on this project. I led research, pushed back on the original scope, and helped the team align on a solution that balanced customer clarity with verification requirements.
Why it was important for the business to solve this problem
Verification is critical to Carvana’s business.
About 82% of customers finance their purchase, and financing is the company’s largest revenue stream. If a customer cannot pass verification, the sale cannot be complete. This puts our revenue at risk.
Because of this, designing the right solution was critical. The experience had to follow strict policies while still being easy for customers to understand. Small design mistakes could increase rejection rates, create more work for advocates, and delay or lose sales.
Our goals
Business
Reduce document rejections and the time our teams spend reviewing bad uploads.
User
Make uploading documents simple, clear, and fast.
A key finding that led me to push back on the original brief
The initial brief framed this as a UI and copy problems. Product proposed solutions focused on improving components, copy, and visual clarity.
Based on what I knew about the verification process, I didn't think this was the right solution. So I looked into our verification policies.
And I found something really interesting.
Each document type had specific requirements, but most of them were not shared with customers during the upload. This became a turning point in the project.
Original potential solutions
Visual design
User interface
Copy
Copy
Copy
New potential solutions
Visual design
User interface
Copy
Content
Information architecture
Additional problems emerged but there was hope
I decided to dig deeper and asked my product manager for the verification team’s rejection data. That is where I found more interesting data.
Documents were not only rejected for missing requirements. Many were also rejected because of poor upload quality, such as blurry or cropped photos.
And the rejection rates were high. Income documents were rejected 40-75% of the time and address documents about 40%.
But at the same time, recovery rates were also high. Income documents recovered 32% of the time and address documents at 58%. This showed a huge opportunity for us.
At this point, I was confident this was an information clarity problem. Customers did not know what information needed to appear on their documents or the quality required for uploads.
Income
Rejection rate
Top rejection reasons
Recovery rate
Income
40% - 75%
Missing required information
Outside the allowed date range
Wrong document type
32%
Address
40%
Address or name isn't clearly visible
Unaccepted or weak document type
Document is too old
58%
Reframing the problem from UI polish to information clarity
I shared the findings and persuaded my product manager and product director to re-scope the project.
Instead of only improving the document upload UI and copy, we aligned on helping customers upload the right documents correctly on the first try.
This shift also changed how we measured success. Rather than focusing on visual polish, we aligned on clear outcomes:
Fewer rejected documents
Fewer follow-up requests from advocates
Higher verification completion rates
Higher conversion to sale
Rejected documents
Follow-up requests from advocates
Verification completion rates
Conversion to sale
Designing within strict verification rules
Verification requirements are driven by legal, financial, and risk policies, so my designs had to work within the business constraints.
I asked product and the verification team to review income and address requirements together and align on what should be shown to customers.
Many of these requirements are important for advocates when they're handling exceptions, but not relevant for customers.
We were intentional about what to surface and how to word it, so we didn’t discourage customers from uploading documents or overwhelm advocates with invalid uploads.
Income requirements
Address requirements
Principles for scaling designs beyond the current steps
This phase only focused on income and address verification, but we planned to re-design the remaining verification steps in a future phase.
To keep designs consistent, I established a set of principles that would guide current and future work:
Guide before the action
Set expectations upfront so users don’t have to re-upload
Show, don't tell
Use visuals and concise copy because customers only skim
Surface critical info by default
Don’t bury key requirements behind clicks
Support multi-page uploads
Required for bank statements and tax documents
Clear requirements through separated steps and simple copy
I explored different ways to show the requirements. Showing all of them at once was accurate but overwhelming. I wanted to be mindful of how much information customers could process at once.
That's why I landed on a two-step approach:
General requirements that apply to all documents
PDF is preferred, no cut-off, no blurriness
Specific requirements for the document in question
Acceptable date range, income details, employer name, etc
I also worked closely with our UX writer to make sure the copy was easy to read while still being clear and accurate.
Final design (2 step approach)
Version 1
Reason for choosing the winner
By separating general and specific requirements, this version is easier for users to read and follow
A key challenge in address verification exploration
We accepted about 15 address document types but only showed the 6 preferred ones. The others were valid but not preferred and handled case by case. We were essentially blocking customers with non-preferred documents from moving forward.
Given the high recovery rate, I believed we could make address verification requirements more flexible. I raised this idea, but the verification team worried that showing all options would lead customers to upload non-preferred documents that were more likely to be rejected.
I pushed back with real examples, like adults living with family who don’t have property related documents but can still finance a car.
And to address their concern, I proposed showing only preferred documents by default, with the full list available behind a click and a clear warning about the risks of submitting non-preferred documents.
The verification team agreed, and we moved forward with this solution.
Address verification
Acceptable documents
Final design
Version 1
Reason for choosing the winner
Showing all requirements upfront helps ensure users don’t miss important details
Standing firm on what actually mattered
Since this was a high-visibility project, I reviewed the designs with our CPO. He liked the direction but suggested adding sample documents to help customers know what to upload.
While this idea seemed helpful, it didn't solve the problem. Customers knew what bank statements and paystubs look like. What they were missing were clear requirements.
But instead of dismissing the idea, I explored it so we could evaluate the impact together. I shared the designs and explained why sample documents wouldn't help reduce rejections.
The stakeholders agreed but didn't see any harm in keeping the sample documents. So I proposed a hybrid solution.
The design focused on clear requirements, with sample documents available as optional help behind a link.
How I guided stakeholders toward the link solution
Embedded sample document
Link to sample document
Final designs
Meet the new income and address verification steps—designed to help customers get it right the first time so they can get their dream vehicle.
Tasks are as clear as 1, 2, 3—with only the info you need and extra help when you need it.
Know the document requirements upfront so you can get it right the first time
Easily review and confirm your documents meet all requirements before continuing
00:40:00
Order Summary
Income verification
Provide proof of taxable income source(s) to verify your order.
What is your primary source of income?
Income type
Employed - Salary
How would you like to verify your income?
Upload 2 most recent pay stubs
Upload 3 most recent bank statements
Do you want to include a secondary source of income?
Yes
No
Primary income
Upload 2 most recent pay stubs
Save and continue
Document upload
1 / 1
Address document 1 uploaded
Show (1) file
Upload another photo
Only upload photos of your most recent pay stub
My address document meets the requirements:
Displays your name, including suffix
Includes this address:
11 Edgehill Dr, Darien, CT 06820
Is not an image of an address on an envelope
Save and continue
Address document example
1 / 2
Document upload
Address documents uploaded
We’ll be in touch if we need more information.
Close
A refreshed UI that feels modern and is consistent with the new Carvana design system
The data validated that we made the right decisions
We ran the experiment for 6 weeks across 2 cohorts.
The results were clear. Customers uploaded higher-quality documents, fewer re-uploads were needed, and more purchases made it through verification.
This validated our hypothesis: clearer requirements upfront reduce rejection and downstream support work.
8.7%
Approved documents per purchase
The new document requirements list significantly increased document approval rates
5.3%
Conversion to sale
When more documents are approved, more purchases go through, directly increasing conversion
14.7%
Post-sale document requests
With more documents approved on the first try, advocates had to ask fewer customers for additional documents
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