UI / UX Case Study
Your companion through citizen life
A UI/UX case study by Krishom — designing a unified, vernacular-first, accessible citizen super-app for India.
Live — tap to explore
The problem
A citizen who wants to register a birth, claim a pension, or check a land record doesn't deal with one government. They deal with dozens — each with its own app, its own login, its own language, and its own idea of how a form should work.
Services exist, but finding the real one — not a lookalike, not a middleman — takes confidence, data, and patience that the people who need help most often don't have. The maze itself is the barrier.
Saathi asks a simpler question: what if there were just one door?
A few of the apps a citizen is expected to juggle
“मुझे पता है कि सब online है, but मुझे ये नहीं पता कि कौन सा online असली है.”
By the numbers
Government apps and portals
Official languages — most apps support 2–3
Of eligible Indians don't claim welfare they qualify for
Of welfare goes unclaimed every year
Saathi vs UMANG
UMANG is the government's own unified app — thousands of services in one place. It proved aggregation is possible. Saathi starts where UMANG stops: not 'how many services fit', but 'how does it feel for a real person to use one'.
A directory of departments and services — you must already know the exact name.
Life moments, needs and entitlements — you start from your situation, not a department.
13 languages, but most forms still fall back to English.
Vernacular-first, voice on every field, and the whole UI swaps script in 200ms.
You search — nothing tells you what you're actually owed.
Profile-based scheme cards with a transparent 'why you qualify'.
Official, but visually dense and utilitarian.
Calm authority — verification and status surfaced in the first five seconds.
Largely on your own once you submit.
A status timeline with named officers, and family-proxy as a first-class action.
Standard forms; little for low-literacy or low-vision users.
Slow mode, larger text, read-aloud and offline-first — on by default.
UMANG is a real, large-scale product serving millions. This comparison is about design philosophy — not a critique of its engineering or reach.
Research
Over several weeks I spoke with people in cities, small towns and villages about the last time they dealt with a government service. The same three frictions surfaced again and again: language, trust, and simply not knowing where to start.
Has a smartphone and data, but can't tell the real portal from a lookalike.
Relies on a CSC operator for everything — and pays for it.
Wants it read aloud, in Tamil, without rushing.
Fast, fluent, English — wants it done on the train.
The frame
Every service in Saathi is reachable through three lenses that meet at one person.
Personas
34 · Tier-2 · Kanpur
Shopkeeper. Smartphone-confident, but burned by fake-portal scams.
Wants a birth certificate for his newborn without taking a day off or paying an agent.
“If it looks official, I still double-check. Twice.”
29 · Rural · Bihar
Farmer. Low literacy, shares one phone with the family.
Wants to claim a maternity benefit she heard about but can't read the form.
“I can speak it. I can't always read it.”
68 · Senior · Chennai
Retired teacher. Patient, careful, prefers Tamil.
Wants his pension status without calling his son every time.
“Don't hurry me. Just tell me clearly.”
26 · Urban · Bengaluru
Analyst. Fluent in English, zero patience for friction.
Wants to renew a document on her commute, in two minutes.
“If it takes more than the train ride, I'll abandon it.”
How each person uses Saathi
| Persona | Entry point | Key need | Voice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rakesh | Moments | Verifiable trust | Sometimes |
| Sunita | Voice | Read-aloud forms | Always |
| Vikram | Entitlements | Slow, clear, Tamil | Often |
| Ananya | Search | Speed | Rarely |
Principles
Organise around life moments, not government silos.
Designed in Hindi and Tamil first, then ported to English.
Verification, .gov.in signals and calm authority, up front.
Always show where a thing is, who has it, and by when.
Helping a parent or child is a first-class action, not a hack.
Every field can be spoken, not typed.
Every action ends with proof you can keep.
Few choices per screen. Space is a feature.
Built for the lowest-literacy, lowest-bandwidth user first.
Official, never cold. Reassuring, never childish.
Information architecture
Five tabs, each a clear job. Everything else nests beneath them.
Your identity, active applications and what's relevant now.
The three lenses — moments, services, and schemes for you.
Start any service. Voice-fill, upload, review, submit.
Every application, with a status timeline and named officers.
Documents, family proxy, language and accessibility.
Multilingual
One wordmark, seven scripts
Three levels of going local
The same words, rendered in a new script.
Local norms too — dates, currency, names, number formats.
Rebuilt for the language. Designed in Hindi first, then ported.
One screen, four languages
Fully implemented in this prototype: English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil. Telugu and Marathi: partial. Urdu: showcase.
Accessibility
Speak any answer instead of typing it.
More time, fewer steps, gentler pacing.
Scales up without breaking the layout.
Buttons and labels read aloud.
Act for a parent or child, clearly framed.
Designed for weak and intermittent signal.
Status never relies on colour alone.
Semantic structure and live announcements.
Brand
Your companion through citizen life
Palette
Type across scripts
Two concentric arcs — companionship, and an open door.
Saathi is a speculative civic project. I developed a custom brand identity rooted in Indic visual traditions and pair it with a 'Trusted by Government of India' attribution — without using the State Emblem of India, which is legally protected.
Hero flows
From install to ready, in your language.
Language, Aadhaar, OTP, a quick profile and accessibility setup — nine calm screens.
Find services by what's happening to you.
A new baby surfaces birth registration, vaccination and benefits — together.
Fill a form by speaking.
Tap the mic, speak, confirm the structured answer, and the field fills itself.
Know exactly where things stand.
A vertical timeline with completed, current and pending steps — and named officers.
Discover schemes you qualify for.
Profile-based scheme cards with transparent 'why you qualify' reasons.
Do it for someone you care for.
A persistent ‘helping Sunita’ banner keeps every action in the right context.
A fully working iPhone 15 Pro prototype. Switch languages, try voice input, apply for a scheme.
Open the prototype →Reflection
Scoped out for now: real Aadhaar and payments, the full Telugu and Marathi builds, and an offline-first data layer.
Next, I'd pressure-test the voice flows with low-literacy users and run the Tamil and Bengali copy past native reviewers.
I'm a product designer working on civic and consumer products. Saathi is a self-initiated exploration of what dignified, inclusive government software could feel like.
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