I design gold loans so that a family can follow every step in its own language, including the step that ends in an auction.
The first financial screen I helped build sat on a teller's counter in a cooperative bank branch in Ahmedabad. In July 2003, after an electronics degree at Jhalorvat College of Engineering, I joined Sangrahi Softech as a junior programmer. The clerks who used our software knew most of their depositors by name. When a passbook entry looked wrong, the customer did not ask the system; she asked the clerk, who turned the monitor so they could both read it. I learnt then that a financial interface is often read by two people at once, and that the second reader is the one who has to trust it.
A gold loan is usually taken against jewellery that belongs to a household, not to one borrower. The person at the counter may be pledging a mother's bangles to pay school fees or buy seed. I want each screen, notice and call to tell that person what is happening to the gold, what it costs and what happens if a payment is missed, in words she would use at home. When the clearest explanation slows us down, I keep it and account for the delay.