Raksha

I combined secondary research, stakeholder mapping, and primary field work, including ethnographic study, to understand how rural communities actually relate to sanitation.

Secondary research

Behavioural change, not just infrastructure, is the crucial lever for long-term sanitation improvement in rural India. The evidence is clear, and so is the opportunity: rural India is mobile-first and hungry to engage.

What the data told me

• Mobile-first by default. Rural users reach the internet almost entirely through phones (100%), barely through PCs (13%).
• They’re here to engage, not transact. Rural use skews to entertainment (96%), communication (87%), and social media (79%) over commerce.
• Top-down messaging fails. Conventional programs assume information alone changes behaviour, with one-way messages from outside “experts.”
• Change needs participation. Lasting change comes from improving education, communication, and information systems with the community, not at it.

Stakeholder mapping

Everyone who shapes sanitation in the village orbits the community. Tap a stakeholder to see their tier, role, influence, and who they connect to.

Primary research

Field study

I visited Baragain Village in Lohardaga, Jharkhand, mapping its layout, demographics, and daily life: 304 households, around 1,478 people, and a 66.9% literacy rate, with nearly every home owning at least one smartphone.

Habitation profile

Profiling people by age group revealed who actually uses smartphones, and how. The 15–28 group are active users; older adults rarely are, shaping who the app must reach and through whom.

Ethnographic study

Observing daily routines surfaced the real barriers: open defecation as habit, unsafe waste disposal, weak handwashing practices, and abandoned government toilets. Problems of behaviour, not just infrastructure.

I turned a mountain of field notes into a clear direction: clustering observations, finding the opportunity, defining who to design for, mapping their journey, and distilling it all into a single design statement.

01 · Affinity mapping

I clustered raw research notes into themes to see the patterns, low awareness, weak personal motivation, infrastructure gaps, and top-down campaigns that fail to connect.

02 · Identifying the scope

The patterns pointed to a clear opening: with smartphones now common in rural India, interactive, community-based platforms can drive Information, Education & Communication (IEC), and a real sense of shared ownership.

03 · Defining the user segment

I focused on the 15–28 age group: active smartphone users who adopt new trends quickly and influence their peers, the natural carriers of behaviour change within the community.

04 · User journey

Mapping the journey across Learning, Motivation, and Practice exposed where engagement drops, and where design could intervene, turning pain points into opportunities.

05 · Design statement

Everything converged into one statement, the What, Whom, Why, and How, that anchored the rest of the project.

Design statement

For smartphone-using individuals aged 15–28 in rural villages, Raksha is an interactive, community-based platform that drives long-term behaviour change towards good sanitation, through community learning and motivation rather than top-down instruction.

With a clear design statement in hand, I generated broadly, sharpened the concept, and prioritised what to actually build.

01 · Brainstorming

I ran a wide-open brainstorm, generating ideas across features, usability, communication, technology, awareness, and gamification, to widen the solution space before narrowing it down.

02 · Idea napkin

I distilled the brainstorm into a single, sharp pitch, the product, target group, the problems it solves, how, and the benefits, as a one-page sanity check before committing.

03 · Feature ideation (MoSCoW)

I prioritised features with a MoSCoW analysis, separating the essentials, like social sharing, rewards, and AR resources, from the nice-to-haves and what to leave out for now.

04 · The AR bet

Augmented reality became the way to turn a dry, top-down topic into something playful, social, and emotionally engaging, meeting people where they are.

A simple, visual, audio-friendly app that lowers the barrier to participation, and uses AR to make sanitation feel rewarding and shared.

• Ground-level research shapes meaningful design. Working directly with rural communities in their own environment surfaced needs and challenges no report could, and reminded me that empathy and observation matter as much as design tools.
• Good design is simple and useful, not just stylish. With limited resources, the work has to be easy to understand, accessible, and focused on real needs.
• Design with users, not for them. Involving the community in the process made the solution more relevant, accepted, and sustainable.