A speculative experience-modernization concept from DGTL — exploring how one of the world's highest-volume government digital services could become simpler, faster, and more trusted for the millions of travellers who begin their journey to India online each year.
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Long before a traveller lands, they meet a country through a screen. For the India e-Visa service — one of the highest-volume government digital experiences on earth — that screen is a genuine moment of national hospitality. It is also an extraordinary opportunity: at this scale, thoughtful design doesn't just help one applicant, it elevates millions of journeys at once.
For many visitors, the portal is their first direct interaction with India. A calm, confident, plain-language experience sets the emotional tone for the entire trip — an act of digital hospitality.
A growing share of applicants complete their visa on a phone, across time zones, languages, and connection speeds. Designing mobile-native widens access and meets travellers exactly where they already are.
Every question answered inline is one less anxious re-check and one less support email — multiplied across millions of applications. Small moments of certainty add up to enormous gains in confidence and capacity.
Nearly 10 million foreign visitors arrived in India in 2024, and more than 3 million e-Visas were issued in a single year across 170+ eligible nationalities. At that scale, even small improvements in clarity and confidence compound into millions of smoother first impressions. Publicly reported figures, cited for context.
The applicant journey already works for millions of people. Mapping it end-to-end simply reveals where thoughtful design could remove uncertainty and make a strong service feel effortless. Each step below pairs the moment with a design opportunity — framed as a way to build on what already exists.
Opportunity to guide: help every traveller find the right starting point with plain-language entry.
Opportunity to reduce uncertainty: match the right visa to intent through a few simple questions.
Opportunity to streamline: surface a clear, tailored checklist before the applicant begins.
Opportunity to build confidence: progressive, save-as-you-go forms that never lose progress.
Opportunity to reduce rework: real-time photo and document validation with friendly guidance.
Opportunity to reinforce trust: transparent fees and a reassuring, recoverable checkout.
Opportunity to increase certainty: clear status and a simple "what happens next".
Opportunity to arrive prepared: accessible, offline-ready authorization for the airport.
Before a single screen is designed, we align on the principles that govern every decision. For a public service at national scale, these are non-negotiable — accessibility, clarity, and trust come first, always.
WCAG-guided, screen-reader ready, keyboard navigable — designed for every ability from the start.
Built phone-first for real-world networks, thumbs, and small screens — not shrunk down from desktop.
One decision at a time, with helpful context exactly when it's needed — never a wall of fields.
Applicants always know where they are, what's left, and what happens next — no black boxes.
Validate early and kindly, so mistakes are caught before they cost time, money, or a re-application.
Official, secure, and reassuring at every step — the interface itself signals legitimacy and care.
Ready for many languages and literacy levels, with plain words and universally understood cues.
Performance and security treated as features — quick to load, resilient under load, safe by default.
A few illustrative interface concepts that translate the principles into product. These are directional design explorations — not production designs, and not affiliated with any government system. They exist to show how clarity, guidance, and trust might look on screen.
Instead of asking applicants to know the system, the system gets to know them. A short, plain-language flow recommends the correct visa category and previews the exact requirements — before any form begins.
A single, reassuring overview: where the application stands, what's done, what's next, and when a decision is expected. Progress is saved automatically, so applicants can step away and return with total confidence.
Real-time checks catch photo issues on the spot — the single most common cause of rework — so it's right the first time.
A living timeline replaces the anxious wait — clear status, honest estimates, and an ETA that's ready offline when it matters.
The future-state journey keeps every necessary step, but connects them into a single, guided flow — where each stage naturally leads to the next and the traveller always knows they're on track.
The direction thoughtful modernization typically moves — for applicants and for the teams who support them. Shown as directions of travel, not predictions.
Guided flows and upfront requirements replace guesswork with confidence at every step.
Progressive forms and saved progress help more applicants finish what they start.
Answering questions in-context tends to lighten the load on help channels.
Inclusive, standards-led design opens the service to more people, more fully.
A phone-native experience meets the majority of applicants where they already are.
Transparent status and honest estimates turn an anxious wait into a trusted process.
A concept is only as credible as the team behind it. Here's verified, shipped work — a decades-old operation rebuilt into a fast, secure, high-performing digital platform. The same rigor a public service at scale demands.
A 40-year-old market rebuilt as a modern customer-experience platform: Next.js 15 + React 19, Payload CMS, Stripe e-commerce, an interactive live floor map, and 10+ integrations — hitting 90/91 Lighthouse with sub-second desktop load.
Render-blocking bloat removed, CDN and image pipeline rebuilt, schema and clean internal linking added. Mobile Lighthouse climbed from 45 to 86 and organic traffic doubled within 12 months.
An inherited platform with critical security holes left unpatched for months — secured in the first week of engagement, then re-architected for resilience and safe, dependable operation under real traffic.
Verified results from DGTL's shipped platform work. Referenced as proof of capability, not as India e-Visa metrics.
Modernizing a live, high-stakes public service is never a redesign in isolation. We de-risk it with a disciplined, evidence-led path — validating with real users before anything reaches the public, and improving continuously after launch.
Understand goals, stakeholders, policy, and constraints — align on what success means.
Study real applicants and support data to ground every decision in evidence.
Design and build interactive concepts fast — make ideas tangible early.
Test with diverse users across devices, languages, and abilities. Iterate.
Release to a controlled cohort, measure carefully, and prove it before scaling.
Roll out in safe, monitored phases with rigorous security and accessibility gates.
Monitor, learn, and refine — the service keeps getting better over time.
Strategy, technology, creative design, and data under one roof — six in-house capabilities, one team, end-to-end delivery. That cross-functional shape is exactly what large-scale service modernization needs: research, design, and engineering that never lose the thread between them.
Every decision starts from real people, real contexts, and real needs.
Modern tooling to synthesize insight faster, without losing human judgment.
Complex flows, real constraints, high stakes — designed to feel simple.
Design and engineering as one craft, from concept to production code.
The whole journey — front-stage and back-stage — designed to fit together.
Ideas made tangible in days, so we learn early and decide with evidence.
Strategists, designers, and engineers in one loop — no hand-off gaps.
Work shaped by international brands, audiences, and standards.
"Guys!!! WOW! This is awesome 😍 I love it 💖 So happy to see the results!"
"It's rare to find such young and passionate professionals. I am privileged to work with them… Their creativity, work ethic, skills and drive are exceptional. Just look at what they did for Art Villas in only 5 shooting days!"
No. This is an independent, speculative concept created by DGTL to demonstrate our approach to user-experience modernization for large-scale government digital services. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the Government of India or any of its agencies, and nothing here has been commissioned. It exists to open a conversation.
Never with a big-bang redesign. We'd start small and evidence-led: a short discovery and research phase to understand goals, stakeholders, policy constraints, and real applicant behaviour. From there we prototype, validate with users, and pilot to a controlled cohort — proving value before anything scales to the public.
Yes. Our verified platform work includes rebuilding a decades-old operation into a modern system on Next.js with a headless CMS, e-commerce, live data, and 10+ integrations — reaching 90/91 Lighthouse — plus a performance and security engagement that lifted mobile Lighthouse from 45 to 86 and doubled organic traffic. The same rigor applies to public services at scale.
Accessibility and inclusivity are principles we design from, not features we add later — WCAG-guided, screen-reader ready, keyboard navigable, and tested across abilities and devices. Interfaces are structured to be multilingual-ready from the outset, with plain language and universally understood visual cues so the service works for the widest possible audience.
The engaging organization does. In client and partner work, deliverables and IP transfer to the client under the engagement terms. This concept page itself is DGTL portfolio material; any commissioned work product would belong to the partner, governed by a clear agreement.
If you're exploring how a large-scale citizen service could feel simpler, faster, and more trusted, we'd welcome the conversation — as collaborators, not vendors.