Transformed challan into a product-led growth feature driving 3M+ installs

Traffic challan discovery and payment in India is fragmented across multiple state and central RTO systems, with no single trusted destination for vehicle owners. Third-party platforms have inconsistent data and unreliable payments, creating a trust deficit in a high-anxiety moment.

• Fragmented systems: Multiple state & central RTO databases with no unified access for vehicle owners
• High-anxiety moments: Users encounter challans during enforcement or unexpected SMS alerts, triggering stress
• Trust deficit: Third-party platforms have inconsistent data & unreliable payment flows

Before building, we articulated four strategic bets that would guide every design decision:

We designed the challans experience as a platform-level consumer system, using two frameworks to guide decisions: Know-Feel-Do for interaction design and Double Diamond approach to manage complexity across discovery, verification, and payment.

Explore

Explored multiple entry points - web search, reminders, in-app,and mental models for challan discovery.

Define

Identified verification—not payment as the critical trust-building moment and centred the experience around it.

Design

Designed flexible UX patterns to handle state-wise RTO inconsistencies, partial data, and latency.

Deliver

Landed on a verification-first, progressive disclosure flow with defined error states and recovery paths.

• Consumer-backward design:
  Led design across fragmented RTO systems, balancing regulatory constraints, data latency, and payment reliability.
  → Seamless user experience across fragmented RTO systems
• Scalable interaction models:
  Defined error states and system feedback loops that scaled reliably across millions of challan checks.
  → Achieved seamless scalability for 5M+ yearly users
• UX-led cost optimisation:
  Partnered with engineering on smart caching, on-demand fetches, and trade-offs to reduce data costs.
  → Reduced annual data costs by ~₹3 crore

With insights from the framework sessions, style guide, and design system, I moved on to designing and prototyping the full challan experience across web and app.

Clear cards and quick actions make challans easy to check and pay.

A detailed overview helps users review all challans and pay them in one place.

Monthly rewards encourage users to return and build repeat challan-check habits.

Payment history and transaction details give users clear records after every challan payment.

Timely renewal nudges turn high-engagement moments into insurance conversion opportunities.

The app flow quickly informs users about unpaid challans and guides them to resolution.

The garage view brings challans and vehicle actions together in one place.

Strategic app nudges turn web traffic into installs and long-term user engagement.

Multi-state challans are organized into clear payment paths for a smoother checkout experience.

The challan experience became ACKO's primary acquisition and engagement surface. ~4% of users pay challans every month, demonstrating the kind of repeat engagement insurance alone could never achieve.

The challan experience evolved from a utility feature into a platform-level consumer product spanning acquisition, engagement, payments, and cost efficiency.