Making the Budget Make Sense: Designing a State Budget Explorer for Assam 2025-26 (WIP)
Context
As part of a sprint-based assignment, I was tasked with designing a digital platform that makes the Assam State Budget 2025–26 more legible, relevant, and actionable for a diverse set of public stakeholders. This case study documents my ongoing process that is grounded in design thinking, inquiry-led research, and a civic imagination lens.
Initial Problem Statement
"Design a digital platform, a State Budget Explorer for Assam to make budget data understandable and usable for multiple stakeholders."
My Approach
I began by identifying a wide range of stakeholders who interact with or are impacted by the state budget, from the State Finance Department to local citizens. For this sprint, I was asked to focus on any three stakeholder groups that I believed played a critical role. I chose Panchayat Leaders & Ward Members because they act as crucial intermediaries between government decisions and local implementation. They are often responsible for interpreting and enacting budget provisions at the grassroots level. I included School Principals & Teachers because they not only experience the impact of education-related budget allocations firsthand but also shape how civic awareness is cultivated among students. Finally, I selected Common Citizens / Voters, as they are not only the largest beneficiaries of state welfare schemes but also the group for whom budget transparency and accessibility can translate into meaningful everyday change.
Stakeholder Analysis
I mapped four key stakeholder groups on a Power–Interest Matrix: Panchayat Leaders & Ward Members, School Teachers, and Common Citizens (both Urban and Rural). The analysis revealed a shared characteristic — all stakeholders have a high interest in the state budget, though their influence on budget decisions varies widely.
This insight guided me to frame the design challenge not as "how to inform" but rather how to empower high-interest, low-power users, those who are most affected yet least equipped to access or act on budget information.
I've also developed mindset narratives for each group to help ground future design decisions in empathy, everyday realities, and context-specific motivations. These mindsets will feed directly into personas and journey maps.
Mindsets
Before conducting interviews, I developed preliminary mindsets for key stakeholder groups: urban citizens, rural citizens, school teachers, and panchayat leaders. In Human-Centered Design, creating these initial mindsets is crucial. They help anticipate users' perspectives and behaviors, guiding the research to uncover deeper insights.
These mindsets are based on my assumptions and will be refined as I gather more data. They serve as a foundation for understanding user needs and will inform the development of user personas and user journeys later in the process.
What’s Next
With the initial stakeholder analysis and mindsets in place, I’m now moving into deeper user research, conducting stakeholder interviews, synthesis, clustering insights, defining design opportunities, and mapping key user journeys. From there, I’ll be exploring low- to high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, focusing on how the platform can make state budget data not just visible, but actionable for those who need it most.
This case study is a work in progress. I’ll continue to update it as the project evolves — insights, prototypes, and reflections included.
