The happy path gets designed. The document rejection states get designed — usually. But there's a third category of states in identity verification flows that most design teams build without ever properly speccing: the edge cases.

The user who has the same name as their married and maiden document. The user who fails three times in a row. The user whose passport expires while they're mid-onboarding. The user who signed up two years ago and needs to re-verify. The user using a screen reader. These aren't rare edge cases — they affect a significant proportion of every real user base.

This lesson maps six edge state categories, designs the identity mismatch states in detail, builds the re-verification flow architecture, and closes with an accessibility audit exercise that will reveal failures in most identity verification flows.

Let's start by mapping the full landscape of edge states — because the design response depends on understanding what category each one falls into.