Design Gmail for Rural Population
Flipkart Product Design Interview Question: Let us assume that you are creating an alternative to Gmail but for the rural population. How would you design this app?
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Ask Clarifying Questions
You: “Before we proceed, I have a few clarifying questions about the scope of this app.”
Q) “Are we targeting a specific region or country’s rural population, or a global rural market?”
Interviewer: “Let’s assume we’re designing primarily for rural users in developing countries (e.g. India, Africa, Southeast Asia) but with an eye towards global applicability.”
Q) “Should we assume smartphone users only or also feature phone users (e.g. USSD/SMS-based fallback)?”
Interviewer: “Focus on smartphone (mostly Android), since smartphone adoption is rising even in villages. However, consider fallback options (SMS/IVR) for very low-end scenarios.”
Q) “Will this be a completely new email service, or an app that works with existing accounts (like Gmail or other providers)?”
Interviewer: “Its upto you.
Q) “What connectivity assumptions? Do we assume at least intermittent 2G/3G access?”
Interviewer: “Yes – assume connectivity is unreliable (e.g. intermittent 2G or spotty 3G). Offline-first design is crucial.”
Q) “Should we include anything beyond email (e.g. local news, community alerts) or focus strictly on messaging?”
Interviewer: For now focus on email service.
Define the Goals
The goal of RuralMail is to connect rural communities with reliable digital communication by overcoming the typical barriers of poor connectivity, limited literacy, and device constraints. In line with a broader mission of “bridging the digital divide,” we want every rural user to have an accessible way to send/receive information.
Success means high adoption among target users, improved engagement (they actually send/receive emails frequently), and that key obstacles (like lack of internet or language barriers) are effectively mitigated.
List the User Segments
Smallholder Farmers (25–50): Own or work small farms. Often mobile; use phone for market prices, weather. Low literacy, primarily speak a local language. Use cases: receiving crop prices, messaging suppliers/extension workers.
Rural Students (15–24): Attend local schools/colleges. Higher digital literacy than older adults, but may lack resources (data, power). Use cases: school communications, scholarships info, contacting distant family.
Small Business Owners / Shopkeepers (18–50): Run local shops or crafts. Need email for ordering goods or services, could be moderately tech-savvy.
Retirees / Older Adults (50+): Less tech-literate, use phones mainly for voice/SMS. Possibly need health updates or staying in touch with family.
We’ll focus on the Smallholder Farmers (25–50) segment. This group is large and critical to rural economies. They often have low to moderate literacy, intermittent connectivity, and real need for information (weather, prices, subsidies). They stand to benefit most from an email tool that works around their constraints.
List and Prioritize Pain Points
For the Smallholder Farmers segment, major pain points with a standard email app (like Gmail) include:
Rural users struggle to send and receive emails due to intermittent or no internet connectivity during most hours of the day.
Rural users find it difficult to compose or read emails because the interfaces are cluttered and not optimized for low digital literacy.
Rural users are not comfortable typing in English and lack easy keyboards or voice input for local languages and dialects.
Rural users cannot rely on standard email apps because they do not work well offline and lose drafts when the network drops.
Rural users face high data costs and limited bandwidth, making image-heavy emails and attachments expensive to open.
Rural users often forget complex passwords and struggle with account recovery flows that require stable connectivity.
Rural users have difficulty understanding technical email concepts like CC/BCC, threads, labels, and filters.
Rural users lack clear audio readouts or voice assistance, making it hard for semi-literate users to access important messages.
Rural users miss critical updates because email apps do not provide dependable notifications in low-signal areas.
Rural users worry about spam, scams, and phishing but have no simple, trustable indicators to distinguish safe from unsafe emails.
List the Solutions
To address these pain points, we propose several features and enhancements for RuralMail: