PIXELPROOF - Fix the Thing Millions Suffer Through Daily

Sunita Devi, 54, lives in Patna. Her son is getting married and she needs to get her income certificate renewed to submit for a government housing scheme. She opens the Bihar government's online services portal on her Android phone. She has been trying for 11 days. She has filled the form 4 times. Twice the session timed out before she could submit. Once she got an error she did not understand. Once she submitted successfully and received a confirmation number - but nobody has contacted her and there is no way to check the status. Sunita is not the edge case. Sunita is the user.

• The Research Requirement: Non-Negotiable
• You must conduct 5 user interviews with people who have actually used the product you are redesigning. Not students pretending. Not friends doing you a favour. Real people who have genuinely used this product for its real purpose.
• For each interview, document: their name (or alias), age, city, device they use, how many times they have used the product, and at least 3 verbatim quotes. A quote is verbatim - their exact words, not your paraphrase.
• Interviews can be in any language. Translate to English for the submission.
• Mandatory Deliverables
• Deliverable 1 - Research Synthesis (1 page) What did you hear across 5 interviews? Not a list of quotes - a synthesis. What is the one core pain that all or most users shared? What surprised you? What did you assume before research that turned out to be wrong?
• Deliverable 2 - Problem Definition Statement Fill in this exact template — no other format accepted:
• "[User type] trying to [specific task] on [specific product] feel [emotion] because [specific failure in the current experience], which results in [real-world consequence for the user]."
• Example: "First-time homebuyers trying to submit a PF withdrawal request on EPFO feel paralysed because the form has 14 fields with no guidance on what documents are needed at each step, which results in incomplete submissions that get rejected weeks later with no explanation."
• Deliverable 3 - The Redesign (Figma, interactive prototype) Redesign the specific journey you identified. Minimum 6 screens. Maximum 10 screens. Every screen must include: a mobile frame (Android, 360px wide), real content (not Lorem Ipsum), error states where relevant, empty states where relevant, and loading states where relevant. The prototype must be clickable - a judge must be able to complete the entire journey by clicking through your Figma without getting stuck.
• Deliverable 4 - Decision Log For every significant design decision you made, write one sentence: what you changed, and why - citing either a specific user quote or a specific UX principle. Not "I made it cleaner." "Three users said they could not find the submit button because it was below the fold on small screens - I moved it to a sticky footer."
• Deliverable 5 - Constraint Compliance Check Answer these 5 questions about your redesign:
• Does it work on a 5-inch Android screen?
• Does it work on a 2G connection (no heavy images, no complex animations)?
• Can a user with a Class 8 education understand every label without help?
• Does every form field explain why it needs the information it is asking for?
• If the user makes an error, does the error message tell them exactly what to fix?
• If the answer to any of these is no, fix it before submitting.

• Research quality — are the interviews real and the synthesis sharp?
• Constraint compliance — does it work for Sunita on her Android?
• Prototype fidelity — can judge complete the full journey without getting stuck? - 30%
• Decision Log — is every choice justified with evidence? - 20%