Project Kish, is a fellowship initiative under the Bharat Inclusion Initiative and we were engaged by them to make financial contracts easier to understand and accessible for people with low literacy in rural India with a broader goal of preventing financial scams. The Project Kish team had observed stories of financial scams taking place in multiple Indian villages involving mis-selling of insurance policies by major financial institutions where a lot of villagers had lost millions of rupees. The client believed that such scams occur because of language barriers because most of the financial contracts are written in English when most people in rural India with low literacy levels are not fluent in English, making it difficult for the farmers to comprehend it accurately. The Project Kish team wanted to explore the hypothesis that visual representation of the contract terms could overcome language barriers and lead to ease of understanding and correct comprehension of financial contract for the community.
how did we approach it?
We approached the project by conducting two research sprints. The first sprint was focused towards gaining deeper insights into the user’s understanding of financial contracts, their financial decision making & social dynamics and also their preference & comprehension of diverse visual styles. Our team interviewed 25 potential users and stakeholders in Maharashtra and Gujarat (major Indian states), across 4 villages during the first sprint.
These user and infrastructural insights were then translated into design guidelines for illustrating the contract. Visual prototypes were generated in the form of illustrations and scenarios using the design guidelines which were then tested and validated with the users in the second research sprint. The iterative approach helped the team in learning faster from the feedback and getting closer to the solution that was relevant for the end-user and easy to implement within the local context & infrastructure.
what did we deliver?
At the end of the research sprint 1, our team extracted user insights related to their financial decision-making and comprehension of distinct visual styles for understanding of financial concepts which led to creating design guidelines to illustrate financial contracts with the goal of making it easier to understand for the target audience.
In Sprint 2, our design team created distinct visual styles of illustrations based on the design guidelines which was then tested by the research team in a small village near Satara (in Maharashtra state) to gain users feedback. With this sprint, we created a solution that is validated by the users and therefore, relevant to their unique context. Based on these insights, we iterated the design guidelines which is now ready to be implemented at scale. Along with the design guidelines, we also created infrastructure guidelines which were strategic recommendations for implementing the solution in the current local financial ecosystem.
what was the impact?
With our solution, the following impact was achieved -
Users felt empowered & informed to take financial decisions independently for themselves, without having to rely on anyone else
The visual contract helped them in gaining an understanding of all the contractual terms better than ever before.
The solution was appreciated by the user because it was perceived by them as being designed ‘for them’, making them feel included in the process as a result.
Conducting interviews with women at a chowk: This is a photo from our interview session with a group of women from the Bachat group (Savings group) at a chowk (intersection which is a local meeting place) in Gamdi village, Gujarat state.
Having a conversation with a 70 years old shopkeeper who uses his feature phone just to make calls and depends completely on his son for all financial decision-making.
user speaks
“This looks like a symbol from medical context because of the ‘+’ sign.”
A local kirana or grocery store
A small primary clinic of the village
The post office in the village
A group of women from Gamdi, a village in Gujarat state. The lady on the bicycle was the an entrepreneur (women entrepreneurs are very rare to find in such villages) who had taken a bank loan to buy a professional camera. Now, she is the only professional photographer in her village.
Visual storyboard prototype: This is a part of the prototype that the research team had taken to field to gain feedback from potential users. These prototypes were based on the design guidelines created from Sprint 1 of foundational research. The illustrations were realistic scenarios rather than metaphorical or simplified icons based on learnings from the user research.
