The Registration Conundrum

iAM Smart is Hong Kong's government digital identity app. The registration process blocked the very users it was meant to serve.

The Problem

iAM Smart — Hong Kong's government digital identity app. Single sign-on for all government services.

The registration process blocked users.

40+ year olds failed the ID card scanning. Everyone struggled with face recognition.

Security requirements (government priority) clashed with human patience (user reality).

What I Discovered

Gender matters in design. Male users preferred a 3D red dot (gaming experience). Female users didn't understand it at all.

Users ignore instructions and demo GIFs. They just try.

The face recognition instruction ("turn your head left, then back to center") sounded simple. The AI couldn't handle quick movements or extreme angles.

Citizens don't use the government's one-stop platform (mygov.hk). They go directly to individual service sites. The strategy was broken.

What I Built

Audio guides — not visual instructions people ignore, but audio cues that play during scanning. Calm voice, real-time guidance.

Alternative flow — when users fail any registration stage, prompt them to visit a kiosk or counter for assistance. Graceful fallback.

Revised instructions — simpler language, clearer expectations.

Did It Work?

Not perfectly. Some users still struggled.

But we created a path forward — audio assistance, alternative registration methods, better understanding of the problem.

What I Learned

Government projects move slow. Perfect solutions are rare.

Sometimes the win is simply: clearer guidance, honest acknowledgment of difficulty, a fallback option that respects people's time.

And positioning digital identity as equivalent to physical ID — if you accept a physical ID card requires verification, why not a digital one?