GovTech
Language-first design for citizen services
If a service only works in two languages, it only works for some citizens. Voice and translation change what is possible — if you design for them from the start.
Most digital public services are designed in English, translated into Hindi, and then declared multilingual. The citizens who need them most are neither.
Start with the utterance
A language-first service begins by asking: what will the citizen say, in what language, on what device? From there, detection, speech and translation become architecture decisions rather than afterthoughts.
What this looks like in practice
In our grievance kiosk work, the citizen speaks once. The system detects the language, extracts the structured complaint, switches the entire interface to that language and reads back the result. No form, no literacy requirement, no English.
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