At The Engine Room, we work to build an ecosystem of digital tools that are values-aligned and reflect the needs of activists and targeted communities across the Global Majority. As part of this work, and as a service provider for OTF’s User Experience & Discovery (UXD) Lab, we conduct no-cost UX research projects to improve the usability and accessibility of open source, privacy-preserving internet freedom tools that provide protections against surveillance, censorship, and repression to those advancing social justice on the ground.
We are currently selecting tools for our next UX research cycle. If you are an open-source tool developer seeking to improve the usability and accessibility of your tool, this opportunity may be relevant to you.
What is the OTF UXD Lab?
The UXD Lab is dedicated to improving the user experience design of internet freedom tools by helping projects better understand the needs of their user communities, and supporting them to make their tools more usable and accessible to diverse audiences.
OTF supports technology-focused projects that advance internet freedom, and counter repressive online censorship and state surveillance. Such projects include circumvention and anti-censorship tools, privacy-enhancing technologies, and tools that support resilience during internet shutdowns, among others.
The Engine Room at the UXD Lab
At The Engine Room, we have provided over ten years of user experience (UX) research. As we have said in the past, we strongly believe that resource-constrained human rights defenders, activists, and journalists, especially those in repressive environments in the Global Majority, should be primary user groups for internet freedom tools. Based on our experience, these groups can provide crucial feedback to the developers and designers of internet freedom tools, providing evidence on what works, how, and in what context.
In our UX research, we are very intentional in placing context and community perspectives at the center of our methodology and analysis. When approaching usability and accessibility, we take a community-centered approach, recognizing that barriers to technology extend beyond technical usability to include structural inequalities and vulnerabilities faced by populations most impacted by injustice. We focus on understanding these structural barriers, such as limited connectivity, restricted access to devices, low digital literacy, and heightened risks in surveillance-heavy environments. By taking these realities into account, we are able to provide more holistic recommendations, including product improvements, community outreach strategies, further research needs, and other context-specific considerations.
Last year we provided UX support to a variety of tools that support documentation for human rights defenders, a privacy and security-oriented operating system, open-source platform for mobile device forensics and digital investigations, and a secure platform for aggregating, displaying, and sharing data on digital security threats and attacks facing global civil society, connecting them to users in Latin America, Africa, South East and South West Asia and North Africa.
UX research services
Within the UXD Lab, The Engine Room works under the User Discovery category to provide the following services:
- Exploratory research: We can work with you to better understand the needs of a specific community in relation to a particular context, time, or type of threat or harm to internet freedom that could be addressed through technology.
- Secure user research: We can explore your current user base, how tools work in specific contexts, and how your organization can best reach specific communities. This may involve interviews, focus groups, journey and systems mapping, as well as audience analysis and early adopter mapping.
- User testing and feedback: We can develop and facilitate user testing and feedback sessions that inform platform design decisions and help you better understand those using your tool.
- Support in designing sustainable user feedback flows: We can design sustainable and meaningful feedback systems for the communities most in need of your products and services.
This research could be a good fit for your team if, for example, you are wanting to understand how the tool is landing in specific contexts facing risks, reach potential users in a different or new context, particularly in the Global Majority, or overall, get a better and holistic understanding of current user needs, and others.
How to receive support
You can learn more about the UXD Lab on their website and apply for support via the UXD Lab Support Request form. If you would like support filling out this form or have any additional questions about the process, you can contact us directly at uxdlab@theengineroom.org.