01 / TRUECALLER / GROWTH
Designing an Android recovery experience for users whose permissions no longer support Truecaller’s core experience: Caller ID.
What started as a fast intervention for “passive leavers” evolved into a broader permissions strategy spanning app launch, re-engagement and onboarding.
Role
Product design, research and testing
Core team
Product Designer, Senior Product Manager, Project Manager
Collaboration
Android Engineering
Timeline
May–August 2026
Platform
Android
PROTECTION CHECKLIST
FINAL PRODUCT VISUAL PLACEHOLDER
THE PROBLEM
Truecaller’s core experience on Android depends on permissions that allow Caller ID to appear and the app to keep working reliably in the background.
Android 16 introduced stricter restrictions on background activity, contributing to more app processes being frozen and critical functionality becoming unavailable. Combined with permissions being missing or revoked over time, this meant users could still have Truecaller installed while Caller ID — its core experience — was no longer working reliably.
We saw an opportunity to help these users restore their setup before becoming passive leavers.
18%
don’t see Caller ID
Permissions missing → Background reliability affected → App feels like it stopped working → User becomes a passive leaver
DISCOVERY
Android permission recovery was not one consistent flow. Different manufacturers could send users through different system settings and interactions.
OEM SYSTEM FLOW
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VIVO SYSTEM FLOW
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VIVO
An edge case worth prioritizing
Vivo exposed the most difficult path I found. Disabling battery optimization required users to navigate a system flow where the critical next step looked like static information rather than something tappable.
This wasn’t a niche device problem. With Vivo representing 22% of our users, our largest OEM group, making this path clear became an important constraint to solve for.
22%
largest OEM group
IDEATION
A checklist for recovery?
The research made it clear that there wasn’t a single permissions problem to solve. We started exploring interventions at different moments in the user journey, including improving how individual permissions were requested during onboarding.
For existing users, however, the challenge was different. They could already be missing several permissions, without necessarily knowing that anything had changed.
During a co-working session, one idea emerged for this group: bring the missing permissions together in one place and give users a clear way to recover their setup.
EARLY CHECKLIST EXPLORATIONS
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USABILITY TESTING
Once the flow was ready, I ran an unmoderated usability study through Lookback with 8 users on lower-end Android devices. The task was to grant all missing permissions using the checklist.
I was particularly interested in the Vivo experience. Because the system interaction I had discovered was unusually difficult, all participants tested the flow as if they were using a Vivo device, allowing me to validate whether the tutorial gave them enough guidance to complete the task.
Most participants completed the flow successfully. Some initially missed the tappable row in Vivo’s settings, but after returning and paying closer attention to the tutorial, they were able to continue and grant the permission.
8 users · Lower-end Android devices · Hardest path deliberately tested
USABILITY TEST / PROTOTYPE
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ITERATION
Keep the UX, simplify the UI
The usability test gave us confidence in the overall flow, so I didn’t make major changes to the interaction model. Instead, I focused the next iteration on simplifying the interface and making the experience faster to build.
BEFORE
FIRST VERSION PLACEHOLDER
AFTER
FINAL ITERATION PLACEHOLDER
01 Removed numbered steps — The permissions didn’t need to be completed in a specific order, making the experience more flexible.
02 Used existing components — Rebuilding the interface with the existing design system reduced implementation effort.
03 Added completion feedback — Haptic feedback made successful permission recovery clearer.
04 Clarified the Vivo interaction — The hand illustration was replaced with an animated tap target, making the required action more explicit without adding more instructions.
IMPACT
96,009
newly granted Caller ID
30.6% click → granted
103,934
enabled unrestricted battery access
47.6% click → granted
101,401
enabled Run uninterrupted
34.4% click → granted
BEYOND THE CHECKLIST
A broader approach
The Protection Checklist became one part of a broader effort to make sure users retain the permissions Truecaller needs to deliver its core experience.
In parallel, we introduced interventions at different moments in the journey, both for existing users who had lost permissions and for new users during onboarding.
I designed an app-launch UME interstitial that directs existing users with missing permissions to the checklist. For new users, I designed a battery optimization step during onboarding, while the team also introduced a second opportunity to grant the Caller ID role when users decline it the first time.
Together, these initiatives address the same problem from different points in the lifecycle: recovering critical permissions when they are lost, while increasing the chances that new users start with the setup Truecaller needs to work reliably.
ONBOARDING → ACTIVE USE → PERMISSION LOST → RECOVERY
APP-LAUNCH INTERSTITIAL
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ONBOARDING BATTERY OPTIMIZATION
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CALLER ID PERMISSION
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PROTECTION CHECKLIST
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WHAT’S NEXT
Increase engagement
At scale, the checklist is already driving meaningful recovery: hundreds of thousands of users entered the permission flows, with strong conversion once they did.
The next opportunity is to understand what could motivate more users to take that first step.
My next step would be to explore how the checklist communicates value, urgency and the consequences of missing each permission, while being careful not to make an already intrusive experience feel more disruptive.
Increase urgency and motivation
WITHOUT
making permission recovery more intrusive
REFLECTION
What I took from this
This project reinforced how closely product design, data and technical constraints are connected in Growth. What started as a question about passive leavers led us deep into Android permissions, OEM-specific behavior and the conditions required for Truecaller’s core experience to work reliably.
My role was to translate those findings into experiences users could understand and act on, investigating the system flows myself, exploring and testing solutions, shipping quickly, and using real behavior to decide what to improve next.
The work is still evolving, but it has already changed how we approach permissions: not only as something to recover when it breaks, but something to protect throughout the user journey.