Biometric login improvements
We’ve been working on understanding the biometrics-enabled login experience on the NHS App to uncover user pain points and explore possible solutions.
Why we’re doing this work
Initially, our developers drew our attention to a bug that led users to a white dead-end screen if they pressed the ‘Continue’ button while the biometric authentication process was running (for example, face or touch recognition).
While fixing the login bug, our team uncovered additional pain points in the biometrics flow and identified a wider opportunity to improve the overall app login experience. We wanted to gain a better understanding of the end-to-end experience to make sure we understood how the different issues fit together, from logging in to logging out of the app.
This included:
- identifying a login and logout loop issue when face recognition users tried to log out of the app, in which they were automatically logged back in
- creating hypotheses on how the launch screen could be tested with users to find out how we could split the login options
- finding an opportunity to inform existing users of the app’s biometric login option
Besides the pain points uncovered, the need for this work was evident because different app teams had started to meet up on a weekly basis to discuss a plan for addressing the various issues that occur when going between NHS App and NHS login.
What we did
We completed different design activities to uncover pain points for the biometrics login experience.
Team collaboration and exploration
We ran a series of huddles with designers and developers to map out the cause of the white screen bug. Through doing this, we identified a need to make the biometric login sequence clearer and smoother. This led us to introduce a new launch screen.
Service design
We collaborated with the NHS login team to understand the wider login experience and the pain points their team had already captured. We also collated all the user feedback, insights, and pain points from across app teams in one Mural board to visualise all the pain points in the login journey, their estimated impact, and the supporting evidence. As a result of this activity, we uncovered more biometrics login related pain points and opportunities.
User research
We carried out several rounds of research with users who had different access needs and across several contexts:
Moderated usability testing in the Leeds user research lab – November 2024
We tested a HTML prototype to explore the biometric login journey (face recognition), and the logout journey.
Unmoderated user research on UserZoom – December 2024
We used Figma prototypes to test the reactions to the white screen login bug, proposed launch screen, and the overall biometric login flow.
Moderated usability testing in the Leeds user research lab – April 2025
We tested two native prototypes of the onboarding patterns, which included a new pattern to prompt returning users to turn on their biometric on the app (see the example below in the ‘biometric prompt’ image).
In these rounds of research, we gathered insights from 27 people with various levels of digital confidence, including neurodiverse users on both iOS and Android devices.
These are some of the screens we tested in the research rounds:
The as-is screen is what we have live, and the to-be is a native screen which we tested for further iterations in the future.
What we found
Only the relevant findings for the biometrics login experience improvement are reported below. Broader insights about the login and onboarding experience were documented and will be shared in subsequent posts.
As-is pain point mapping
- The current launch screen with the ‘Continue’ button and the biometrics login loading up at the same time caused confusion for users, which is how we uncovered the bug when they hit the button.
- Users are generally unaware of the app’s biometrics capability and therefore they login manually, which causes frustration.
- When logging in, the blank screens loading up before users reach the Home screen of the app, causes double the amount of API requests, making it longer to log in, and leading to a poor user experience.
- Face recognition users were caught in a login and logout loop when they tried to log out of the NHS App as they were instantly logged back in with their face recognition when they logged out. This particularly caused issues for app users who shared devices.
Moderated usability testing (November, 2024)
- Most participants felt comfortable using biometrics to log in to the app, some felt that using a password is a safer option for them.
- A user highlighted the absence of the haptic feedback when the biometrics (in this case, face recognition) failed as this is how they tend to notice if the login is unsuccessful.
- Users felt reassured that they had logged out the NHS App when presented with the new logout screen.
Unmoderated usability testing (December, 2025)
- Most participants said they would expect the ‘Continue’ button on the launch screen to take them to a “next step”, or to “show their dashboard”, which we believe meant the Home screen of the app.
- Participants felt unsure about what action was required of them upon logging in when the biometrics (face recognition) was running with the ‘Continue’ button on the launch screen at the same time.
- When participants encountered the bug screen (a blank white screen) upon clicking the ‘Continue’ button whilst the biometric authentication was running, they abandoned the whole user task (we replicated the real login bug that led our users to a dead-end when pressing the ‘Continue’ button).
- Most participants waited without any frustration or hesitation when the new proposed launch screen was introduced without the ‘Continue’ button as only the biometrics was loading on the screen.
What we’ve changed so far
- Introduced a new launch screen to reassure and inform users that the app is loading their data before they use their biometric login.
- Released a new logout screen to inform users that they logged out, with the option to log back in, and to stop the login and logout loop happening.
- Introduced Password Manager and Passkeys for Android NHS App users.
What’s next
- Introduce a screen to promote biometric login option for returning users who currently have their biometrics featured disabled on the NHS App.
- Optimising the different login routings so that it works more effectively for the biometric log-in sequence, email login screen, password managers, passkeys.
- Continuing to work on further login integration bug fixes to make the experience more seamless.
- Exploring how Password Manager and Passkeys could be further improved to provide a faster and more secure app login experience.