Given the varied levels of technology available to the masses across the world, there are immense opportunities to bridge, or even leapfrog the gaps. As a community of designers and thinkers, we are privileged to live in a time that allows us to create new products and services that can have a truly positive social and economic impact in the local societies.
Our experiences have taught us that it takes an honest, immersive and intimate understanding of human behavior to identity insights that eventually lead to innovative solutions. When conducting research in emerging markets, we aim to break down barriers to have a richer dialogue with potential users. We often choose non-traditional methodologies to help us identify outlier trends in each sub-culture, helping us gain newer perspectives and tell better stories. Our research plans are guidelines, not scripts. During fieldwork, we continually adapt and seek insights from unexpected places, and plan our research with this improvisation in mind.