NEEDFINDING IN USABILITY DISCOVERY
What We’re Doing
Inclusive design is fundamental to localization and to Localization Lab’s values. Our newest area of work includes usability discovery services, which documents user experiences to drive innovation, inclusion, and improvements in digital freedom tools. We are thrilled to deepen our work with local communities through usability discovery research.
Our goal is to create feedback loops and communication channels between application developers and the end-users of those applications, particularly end users in the Global Majority of diverse languages. Localization Lab knows that intuitive design comes from a deep understanding of users and user experiences, which is why the team places end users at the center of its work. Localization Lab’s success of the past decade is built on the team’s rapport with local communities.
Core Services
The primary usability discovery services that Localization Lab offers include exploratory research, secure user research, and user testing and feedback sessions. This approach enables Localization Lab to holistically document the behaviors that users adopt, the culturally contingent attitudes they embrace around tools, and the environments that impact and influence how they use tools.
Individuals and organizations can reach out to the Localization Lab team for user discovery services that include:
Exploratory Research: Conducting preliminary ethnographic “needfinding” research on user needs, motivations, preferences in relation to an unmet or undefined area of freedom of expression, privacy, and digital security. This research incorporates both ethnographic research with end-user communities, as well as open-source research gathering on local digital environments, e.g., around the digital threats that users from specific communities encounter.
Secure User Research: Documenting and analyzing user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation, task analysis, and other methods using secure, encrypted, and private methods of communication. Localization Lab’s UX research capacity includes methodologies to document and analyze user behaviors and attitudes such as through diary studies, focus groups, user interviews, as well as surveys, card sorting, and journey mapping.
User Testing and Feedback: Creating open communication and feedback loops between end-users and product developers is essential to creating usable and enjoyable user experiences. Localization Lab has the capacity to lead qualitative and quantitative user testing and feedback, e.g., with A/B testing, cart sorts, and surveys that allow developers to gain perspective on the scale of the qualitatively documented preferences, needs, and motivations of end users.
This suite of research approaches enables the team to develop a thorough understanding of users’ behaviors, needs, and motivations and to provide end users and tool developers with information that enables them to co-develop and design resources that meet users’ needs.