Designing India's CoWIN Vaccination Portal: Partner Features and Persona Metrics

The Government of India brings you in to design CoWIN, the national platform behind its COVID-19 vaccination drive. Answer in two parts: which features you would build first for the platform's partner personas, and how you would tell whether the platform is succeeding, including how those measures differ from one persona to another. ### Clarifying Questions - Which partners are in scope: government and private vaccination centers, the vaccinators at each site, state and district health officials, and outside apps or employers that want to book on citizens' behalf? - Are we designing for the start of the drive, before any doses are given, or improving a platform that is already live? - Does eligibility open to everyone at once, or in phases by age or priority group? - Must the platform serve people without a smartphone or reliable internet, and in which languages? ### Part 1 — Features for partner personas Identify the partner personas CoWIN depends on and propose the top features you would build for each. Say which ones must exist on day one of the drive. ```hint Follow the dose Trace one dose from the moment a center publishes a slot to the moment a certificate is issued, and note which partner touches each step and what slows them down. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A clear set of partner personas and how each one's job differs from the citizen's - Features tied to specific partner pain points, including poor connectivity and high volume at sites - A prioritized launch set, with reasons for what waits ### Part 2 — Success metrics by persona Define the metrics that would show CoWIN is working, and explain how the metrics that matter change across citizens and each partner persona. ```hint One goal, many views Start from the outcome the government cares about, then ask what each persona would have to experience for that outcome to move. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - One top-level metric that reflects the drive's real goal - Persona-level metrics that each map back to that goal - Guardrails for fairness, data accuracy and reliability ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal for the platform that goes beyond bookings, such as fast, fair and verifiable coverage - Partner features grounded in how vaccination sites and health administrators actually operate - Metrics that differ by persona yet ladder up to one national outcome - Trade-offs between online self-booking and access for people who are offline - Risks such as slot-grabbing bots, outages when slots open, and health-data privacy ### Follow-up Questions - Slots for a newly eligible group fill within minutes and many people never get one. What do you change? - Second-dose completion is lagging in rural districts. Which metric would have warned you first, and what would you build? - An outside app wants to book appointments through the platform. What would you require before granting it access?