Fragmentation is the core pain
The survey’s top complaints were no combined view of bills and keeping track of dates. Top requests: automatic reminders and one view of everything.
ErgonomicsSemester 1 · 2025
UNIFY
One app for every household bill, designed to cut the cognitive load of paying on time.
92.3%of respondents rely on UPI apps
38.6/100weighted workload score (NASA-TLX)
#1stressor: time pressure from due dates
Context
Indian households pay rent, utilities, tuition, subscriptions and staff across several UPI apps, reminders and notebooks. Nobody has one view of what’s due.
Problem
Payment tools aren’t ergonomically optimised for multi-bill household use: visual strain, cognitive overload, inconsistent flows and accessibility barriers, especially for older users.
Time pressure dominates
In the NASA-TLX analysis, temporal demand carried the highest weight. The stress is about deadlines, not the payment itself.
Four very different users
Working parents, homemakers, elders and young adults need different things: speed, reminders, larger type and voice, or analytics.
Solution
All bills, one calm screen
A single app for fixed and irregular bills, with UPI one-tap pay, auto-pay for subscriptions and smart reminders, designed with Hick’s law, Fitts’s law and clear affordances.
- Combined bill view with due dates
- Auto-pay and smart reminders
- Senior mode: larger type, voice assistance, simple navigation
- Multilingual interface
Measuring workload with NASA-TLX turned a vague “payments are stressful” into a specific design target: reduce time pressure first.
01 · Users
Four households in one
We designed for four user types, each with a different ergonomic need.
- Working parents (25–45): juggling tasks; need quick access, auto-reminders and minimal steps
- Homemakers (30–50): moderate phone use; need simple navigation, larger buttons, less text
- Elders (50–65): limited familiarity; need high contrast, voice guidance, minimal typing
- Young adults (16–22): tech-savvy; want clear analytics and a fast add-and-pay flow
02 · Pains
Nine pain points
From the user study: difficulty managing many payments, no central system, missed or late payments, high mental load, dependence on several apps, no shared tracking in families, limited accessibility and language support, no expense insight, and privacy worries about sharing details.
03 · Analysis
Measuring the load
We adapted NASA-TLX to household payments and weighted six factors through pair-wise comparison. The weighted workload came out at 38.6/100. Time pressure carried the most weight, followed by effort, mental demand and frustration. So the design target was clear: cut temporal demand with automation, and cut effort by ending fragmentation.
04 · Structure
From wireframes to a system
Low-fidelity wireframes set the flows (splash, login, OTP, dashboard, add bill), then an information architecture, a component library, Roboto type and a blue-led colour scheme.
05 · Principles
Ergonomics on screen
Each screen was checked against three ideas.
- Hick’s law: fewer choices per screen and one clear call to action
- Fitts’s law: large, well-spaced tap targets placed in the thumb zone
- Affordance: familiar bill rows (name, amount, “View bill”) and a search bar that looks typeable
What I learned
Takeaways
- 01Cognitive load can be measured; NASA-TLX turned a feeling into a ranked list of stressors.
- 02Designing for elders first (contrast, voice, fewer choices) made the app simpler for everyone.
- 03Ergonomics applies to screens: thumb zones and decision count are physical and mental load.
- 04A shared household view is a social design problem, not only an interface one.