How can we build systems that respects complex Identities?


An ethnographic UX case study exploring cultural identity, emotional friction, and inclusive service design at the India–Bhutan border

📍 Location: Chunabhatti village, India–Bhutan border
⏳ Duration: 3 months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork
🧑🏽‍🔬 Role: Lead UX Researcher & Ethnographer (solo)
🎯 Focus: Service exclusion, emotional friction, hybrid cultural identity

About the Project

In the borderland village of Chunabhatti, government systems failed to serve Drukpa families, not because of lack of data, but because their hybrid identities didn’t fit the form

This project explored how government and institutional systems can better serve culturally hybrid users who fall outside standard documentation categories.

While records and usability data showed low uptake, they couldn’t explain the deeper reasons behind service abandonment. Through immersive UX research, we uncovered emotional friction, cultural mismatch, and systemic blind spots that led to real-world exclusion.

By translating these insights into actionable UX strategies, we aimed to make public services more inclusive, trustworthy, and human-centered.




This project explored how government and institutional systems can better serve culturally hybrid users who fall outside standard documentation categories.

While records and usability data showed low uptake, they couldn’t explain the deeper reasons behind service abandonment. Through immersive UX research, we uncovered emotional friction, cultural mismatch, and systemic blind spots that led to real-world exclusion.

By translating these insights into actionable UX strategies, we aimed to make public services more inclusive, trustworthy, and human-centered.


This project explored how government and institutional systems can better serve culturally hybrid users who fall outside standard documentation categories.

While records and usability data showed low uptake, they couldn’t explain the deeper reasons behind service abandonment. Through immersive UX research, we uncovered emotional friction, cultural mismatch, and systemic blind spots that led to real-world exclusion.

By translating these insights into actionable UX strategies, we aimed to make public services more inclusive, trustworthy, and human-centered.


The Challange


How can public systems better serve people with layered identities like the Drukpa community, who are culturally Bhutanese but legally Indian and often excluded due to documentation mismatch, silence, and shame?



My Approach


Immersive ethnography in a remote forest-border village

Emotional journey mapping & persona development

Co-design with elders, women, and oral-tradition users

Systems & identity mapping across bureaucratic, spiritual, and kinship networks

Translation of lived insights into inclusive, trust-first design flows



Outcome


I translated field insights into five culturally grounded design interventions:

  1. Visual onboarding kits for low-literacy users

  2. Oral-feedback loops built on story and trust

  3. Cultural calendar prompts aligned with rituals like Nwagi

  4. Emotional journey maps to reflect identity-based friction

  5. Localized trust anchors, monks, elders, forest guards, built into UX delivery

These tools were co-created with the community, validated in live sessions, and shared with NGOs and governance actors. They are now being piloted in 3 borderland villages as part of public service onboarding and inclusion efforts.Through this, five key insights emerged.


What I learned



Design doesn’t begin in tools it begins in trust, presence, and story.
The systems we build must see people not just as users, but as layered, emotional, culturally rooted humans.

Why it matters


Where others saw low uptake, I uncovered systemic mismatch and emotional friction.
This work showed I can lead solo research, design for cultural complexity, and turn deep insights into actionable, inclusive systems.

For the case summary click here.

Inclusive service design at the India–Bhutan border

M.Phil Research Work