How do you build a digital platform that advances understanding of India through data?

Data For India publishes original, research-backed, data-informed insights on key socio-economic themes about India. This work is backed by publically available, globally trusted data sources. All of their work is published on permissable copyleft licensing to encourage sharing and reuse. Their mission: “Insights, charts and data to create shared knowledge and expand our understanding of India.”

As the volume of work on the platform increased, readers found it harder to discover what they were looking for. And for first-time visitors, there was no clear entry point or guidance on how to start using the platform. Beyond discovery, not all the offering and depth of work was evident to readers, and they found it hard to share, reuse the charts, data or insights on the platform.

I led the product strategy for the biggest update to the Data For India platform since launch — a significant redesign organised around the three key principles of Discovery, Organisation, and Utility. The process was informed by the long terms goals of the platform, and backed by and extensive user research exericse to identify key areas of intervention.

Better discovery

• A navigation is rebuilt around the socio-economic topics covered on the platform, with clear communication of the themes.
• Search as a front-and-centre experience on the webiste to surface relevant analyses, research, and topics instantly.

Clearer organisation

• Rich catalogues making it easy to browse through all the content published and topics covered.
• Work organised into themes and topics, with topic tags showcasing all pieces for particular needs.

Enhanced utility

• Reading, the central experience, made more comfortable across devices with clean, spacious layouts on desktop and mobile.
• Charts are clearer, easier to read and more reusable both on and off the plafrom, with easy access to the underlying data.

Data For India

• Arpit Arora, Product Lead
• Gulshan Khan, Engineering Lead
• Rukmini S, Founder

External collaborators

• Aabha Joshi, User Research Consultant
• Tibba Design Studio, Product Design Partners