We were recently approached by ChangeMakers Refugee Services (“A rights-based, non-government organisation (NGO) representing 14 refugee-background communities in Wellington, New Zealand.” - http://crf.org.nz) regarding the design and development of their Refugee Services Portal.
This talk will reflect on our experiences working with refugees and their participation in our UX workshops, remembering that many participants spoke no English and had to have basic instructions described/translated. The talk will also re-emphasise the importance of embracing user-centered design principles and UX techniques in product/service design, irrespective of the context.
This talk has been partly inspired by Dave and Gary’s talk “Parachuting into Cambodia: 5 days of dust, heat and design” from UXNZ 2016, because it re-emphasises the fact that embracing UX principles and techniques have no language or cultural barriers, and instead its universal. This engagement is also helping us realise that no matter what your geopolitical standing is, we live a global village and we need to think that way when designing products and services, and what we’re finding out is that UX design principles and techniques breaks through those biases and stereotypes and helping realise that we all speak one language and desire experiences that cater for others.
