Case study: UX lessons from this Indian digital payment solution
By: Parth Katrodiya
Tags: Inclusion, Case Study, Accessibility, UX, Service Design

The user can redeem the voucher without any payment application, bank account, internet connection or even a smartphone. The service has not yet rolled out in practice [before the publication of this article] so some of the technical details and ambiguity remains unsolved. As of now, the government has announced this service for the healthcare sector (vaccination) and is expected to expand to various government subsidy programs and integrate into other sectors as well.

Let us now dissect and analyze it as a service design.

Novel Features

Users of the Indian subcontinent provides us with, if not the most, one of the most diverse user bases in the world. Instance of the e-RUPI roll-out and its wide user context has a very foundational yet undervalued lesson for UX practitioners and ‘makers of society’ in general — Accessibility and Inclusion.

Accessibility

Accessibility is the concept of whether a product or service can be used by everyone — however they encounter it (Interaction Design Foundation). Accessibility in the context of HCI (Human Computer Interaction) refers to the access by people with disabilities to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Live Performance interpreter Jasmine DeLoss at Kaaboo for people with hearing impairment (Source: LA Magazine)

Considering the example of e-RUPI, it is the most accessible and inclusive digital payment solution so far, backed by these 2 major aspects of the service:

1. Minimum requirements of e-RUPI makes it much more accessible to the users as compared to other payment solutions previously existing. All they need is a registered phone number.

This solution leverages the advancements in ICT to push the domain of digital payment handling even further while also taking into account the users (level of computer use expertise, culture and languages, age group) of this setting. A vast majority of users in India belong to the set of people who do not have a smartphone, internet connection or even bank account but have a registered phone number.

2. Very little interaction required on the part of users and thus reducing the touchpoints. The beneficiary just needs to validate the SMS string or QR code at the destination accepting it.

This optimization in reduced number of interactions is highly effective for the type of users targeted in this case. A huge part of target users are the people with little or no experience with digital technology and it is extremely common for such people to develop a resentment towards technology.

Technology should benefit the user’s purpose and not defeat it.

Why do accessibility and inclusion matter?

Accessibility laws started and exist to aid people with disabilities, but designers should try to accommodate all potential users in many contexts of use anyway. Following are some immediate implications of accessibility and inclusion explained with examples of everyday systems.

Legal: Governments have set their standards for accessibility as a part of their policies for disabled. Moreover, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content accessible. Business: Besides an enhanced public image for your brand, it is fairly easy to understand that accessibility also helps a business reach more people, which is profitable. Some simple examples include screen readers, responsive web designs for access from more devices etc. Moreover, abiding by the WCAG accessibility standards also has a direct impact as it improves SEO from semantic HTML. As the designers or developers of the product or service, it is never not beneficial to know the working of the business you’re building for. Moral: There are some obvious moral reasons that everyone should have equal rights to technology. Consider an example from rather different area — the proper use of pronouns in regards to the Queer community. Its foundational purpose is inclusion. Studies even show that showed that in transgender youth, using correct pronouns and names reduces depression and suicide risks.

Viral image showing railings describing the view in braille for visually impaired (Naples, Italy)

More often than not, this measure ends up affecting (positively) more than just the disabled (Curb-Cut Effect). For eg. Closed captions were created for people with hearing impairments, but they are also great for watching videos in a noisy environment and for people with less fluency in language. Hence, accessibility is not just a factor to assess the requirements of disabled but a general practice to reach a wider range of people.