Even the best-intended resources can fail when they are not built with an understanding of and empathy for the people they serve. The assumptions, perspectives, and biases that go into design decisions determine who benefits from and who is left out of or harmed by from what we create. The populations we serve come from a wide variety of backgrounds, life experiences, abilities, and more. Knowing their stories is a critical piece of effective service delivery, and U.S. Digital Response (USDR) employs agile, data-driven user research methodologies to gather and tell those stories.
User research at USDR is:
- People-led. We meet people where they are. We honor people’s stories and personal narratives.
- Equity-focused. We apply tenets of equity to shift the balance of power from observer/researcher to participant.
- Trauma-informed. We acknowledge that we are invited into spaces and communities in crisis. We move through them with care, empathy, and humility.
If you’re ready to level up your service delivery with thoughtful, focused user research sprints, reach out to learn more.