User experience in public policy is key to better governance. India’s successes and failures in UX show how citizen-centric design can drive change.
India’s public policies must focus on improving citizen experience, from transportation to healthcare, to ensure better governance and equity for all.
Imagine a world where Interacting with the government is as seamless as ordering food online. This isn't utopian thinking but logical evolution of public policy in the digital age. Yet most government policies, though designed with best intentions, do not achieve a great citizen experience. The result then is that, policies may achieve statistical targets but fail the people they're meant to serve.
As a citizen and an administrator, I've observed a critical gap: policies excel at measuring outcomes and outputs but rarely consider the journey citizens must navigate to access these services. This oversight frustrates transformative policies into sources of inconvenience and inequity.
India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) exemplifies citizen centric design. UPI created a simple, universal language for digital payment. It went beyond digitisation outcomes and reimagined how people should interact with money. Today, a vegetable vendor and a tech executive use the same intuitive interface with ease, democratizing financial inclusion.
Similarly, the Delhi Metro succeeded because it prioritized user experience alongside engineering excellence. Clear signage in multiple languages, predictable timing, clean stations, and logical route planning created a system that users could navigate effortlessly. Delhi Metro didn't just move people faster, it changed how citizens perceived public transportation, making it aspirational rather than a last resort.
India's Election Commission demonstrates UX excellence in managing the world's largest democratic exercise. From standardized ballot designs that work across literacy levels to systematic voter education campaigns, the Commission has made voting accessible for 900 million eligible voters. The process feels familiar with same citizen engagement and experience whether you're voting in rural Rajasthan or urban Mumbai.
Contrast this with Indian Railways reservation system, where millions of citizens still struggle with its reservation portal. Its complex interface and frequent inaccessibility during peak booking times create unnecessary friction. Though there is large traffic, the user experience remains frustratingly antiquated for an ordinary citizen, forcing many of them to rely on intermediaries who charge premiums for navigating the portal.
Our road infrastructure tells a similar story: Highway flyovers with sudden speed bumps that damage vehicles and cause accidents, roads with unmarked potholes that appear overnight, and confusing signage aren't just inconveniences. They're policy failures that prioritize construction completion over user safety and experience making India with one of the highest road accidents in the world.
Similarly public hospitals across India showcase one of the starkest examples of UX neglect. Patients queue for hours without clear information about wait times, navigate confusing layouts to find the right department, and struggle with opaque appointment systems. The medical outcomes are certainly improving; however the human experience of accessing healthcare remains traumatic.
Effective citizen-centric governance requires borrowing from product management principles. First, government policies ought to develop empathy for their users through ethnographic research and journey mapping. Policy designers need real-time experience for effective solutions. Second, policies need user testing before implementation, just as tech companies A/B test features. A policy that looks brilliant on paper but confuses citizens in practice has failed before launch. Third, government policies ought to adopt systems approach with continuous iteration based on user feedback. The best policies evolve through real-world usage. This requires building feedback loops into service delivery and having the institutional flexibility to make rapid improvements. Finally, success metrics must include user experience indicators alongside traditional outcome measures. Reduced processing time means nothing if citizens can't figure out how to apply. High service delivery numbers are hollow if the experience leaves people feeling inconvenienced or confused.
User experience based public policy design isn't just about efficiency, it's about democracy itself. Complex government services become accessible primarily to educated, resourced, or connected citizens. Bureaucratic complexity creates informal gatekeepers extracting rents from citizens seeking basic services. When passport applications, business registrations, or healthcare access become as straightforward as well-designed apps, government truly serves equally.
The path forward requires adopting UX principles, involving citizens in policy design, building empathetic approaches and measuring success through user satisfaction alongside outputs. Twenty-first century governance isn't just about service delivery, it's about citizen experience of that delivery. Only through citizen-centric design, like the recent "next-generation GST reforms", we will achieve governance that serves rather than frustrates, empowers rather than excludes. True democratic progress happens when accessing government feels like a right, not a privilege requiring special knowledge or connections to exercise.
Avinash Pandey is an IRS officer currently with DGGI Ludhiana. Views are personal and do not reflect that of any organisation or the government.
