01.
30 Seconds to Show Your Documents
How I fixed DigiLocker's emergency flow from 7 steps to 3, replacing MPIN and OTP with offline biometric access for the moment that actually matters.
ROLE
UX Designer -(Solo)
DURATION
4-week Sprint
PLATFORM
Mobile Application (iOS and Android)
TOOLS
Figma
PROJECT TYPE
Self-initiated concept project
02.
Brief
Context, problem, and how I approached it
Snapshot
A traffic police officer signals Rohit Sharma to pull over. He has about 30 seconds to show his RC and license before the situation turns awkward. DigiLocker holds his documents, but makes this harder than it should be: he fumbles through an MPIN, waits on an OTP that may never arrive, and sometimes finds nothing at all. This is a self-initiated concept project from my IxDF learning journey. I chose DigiLocker because it's a real, widely used government product whose usability issues affect millions of citizens. All research, synthesis, and design decisions here are my own. This project redesigns that 30-second moment so it never fails again.
Design targets
Speed: RC or DL visible in 2 taps, under 5 seconds, no MPIN or OTP wait
Offline: Quick-Show works fully without network
Setup: First-time setup under 60 seconds, zero repeat effort
Trust: Preserve DigiLocker's existing security model while adding speed
problem
"Mujhe bas RC chahiye, ye line complex kyu bana diya?" (If I just need my RC, why did they make this so complicated?)
DigiLocker gives over 150 million citizens legally valid digital documents, but it was built for calm, planned moments, not a 30-second panic at a checkpoint. A heuristic evaluation of the existing app surfaced the core failures: auto-logout forces a full MPIN and OTP every session, documents are grouped by ministry name instead of how people actually think of them, there's no offline support in exactly the low-connectivity areas where road checks happen, search only recognizes formal terms, and no emergency mode exists, every session gets the same full login regardless of urgency.
My Role
I led this project end-to-end as a solo designer during my IxDF course: heuristic evaluation, research synthesis, persona and journey mapping, problem framing, ideation, task analysis, and wireframing through to high-fidelity design in Figma.
03.
Key design Decisions
Four design decisions defined this product. Each was made deliberately, with a specific user behaviour in mind.
04.
conclusion
DigiLocker could replace the physical wallet for over a billion citizens, but only if it holds up in the one moment that actually matters: when someone in authority asks to see it. This redesign focused on that single panic scenario. Rohit should never have to fumble for his RC, get stuck behind an OTP wait, or lose it inside a search bar. Quick-Show, natural-language search, and a third-party-optimized view all address the same discomfort: trust in a tool is built by how it performs in an emergency, not how it looks on a calm day.
05.
PROCESS
The research, thinking, and considerations behind the 4 decisions above. Expand any section for detail.
