Overview

TikTok Pay is rapidly expanding in Southeast Asia, where KYC (Know Your Customer) is essential to meet compliance regulations and build user trust.
During my internship, I worked on optimizing TikTok Pay’s KYC onboarding for Malaysia and Vietnam, focusing on:

• Information reuse flow optimization

• Multi-vendor SDK UI consistency

• Compliance-driven design solutions

• Reusable SOPs & design systems

Project Context & Goals

• Business Goal → Achieve cross-market compliance and improve KYC completion rates.

• User Goal → Make onboarding simpler, clearer, and more trustworthy.

• Design Goal → Deliver scalable design frameworks to integrate multiple SDK vendors and countries.

Key Problems Identified

UX Problem — Missing Escape Path

Background: When users reused historical identity data but couldn’t find their own ID, the SDK provided no fallback path.

Impact: Users were stuck, causing drop-offs and increased support tickets.

Solution:

• Added “Not My ID” and manual upload flows

• Designed clearer fallback paths to improve recovery

• Improved progress visibility using Goal Gradient Hypothesis

2. Compliance Problem — OCR & Localization

Background: Vendors returned inconsistent OCR fields for Malaysia vs Vietnam.

Impact: Users were sometimes asked to manually re-enter data, risking non-compliance.

Solution:

• Standardized OCR field mappings across markets

• Worked closely with Legal and Risk to validate rules

• Reduced manual corrections and ensured regulatory alignment

3. UI Problem — Vendor SDK vs TUX Guidelines

Background: Vendor SDKs had inconsistent typography, corner radius, icon sets, and error states.

Impact: Fragmented UI reduced user trust during sensitive KYC flows.

Solution:

• Audited SDK components and created the SDK-AAI Design Style Alignment

• Unified typography, icons, button states, and error handling

• Delivered reusable UI templates for cross-vendor integration

Design Solutions & Deliveries

Multi-party Alignment & Implementation

• Collaborated with Product, Legal, Risk, Vendor, and Dev teams

• Pushed SDK teams to support secondary UI encapsulation for cross-country flexibility

UX Optimization & Compliance-driven Design

• Introduced clear escape paths for identity conflicts

• Improved process transparency with progress indicators and feedback states

• Adjusted OCR flows to comply with local regulations

Vendor SDK Design Unification

• Built multi-vendor UI alignment specs based on TikTok TUX guidelines

• Delivered the SDK-AAI Design Style Alignment as the standard reference

First Vendor Docking SOP (Additional Achievement)

• Authored the first standardized Vendor Docking SOP

• Defined workflows, acceptance criteria, and UI delivery priorities

• Enabled faster SDK onboarding and better cross-market scalability

Outcomes

• Improved KYC Completion → Reduced user confusion with better fallback paths

• Enhanced Cross-market Consistency → Unified SDK UI and OCR mappings

• Scalable Design Systems → Delivered reusable UI templates & component libraries

• Operational Efficiency → Vendor Docking SOP reduced integration cycles by ~40%

Harvest

• Built compliance-first UX thinking, balancing regulations with usability

• Strengthened cross-SDK, cross-market design integration skills

• Gained multi-party collaboration experience with Vendor, Product, Legal, Risk, and Dev

• Developed research-driven design workflows, combining user data, theory, and competitive benchmarking

Reflection

• Learned to design for scalability and reuse, not just fixing one-off problems

• Recognized the importance of modular SDK UI components for cross-market adaptability

• Future focus: push for configurable SDK frameworks and data-driven UX enhancements