Technologies like Awala bridge digital divides and provide opportunities for people to connect safely, even when traditional infrastructure and politics might block their access. As part of the OTF Usability Lab, we performed a heuristic review of Awala and a review of the developer experience. Here we highlight the Developer Experience (DX), where we provided recommendations to make it easier for third-party developers to adopt the technology and suitable use cases.

Interoperability can help people evade government repression, document human rights violations, and have agency over their data. We take a look at interoperability and a proposed US law that could help small projects be more successful and grow faster in a web controlled by a few large companies.

With support from Internews, our team helped improve a VPN that helps human rights defenders and journalists access the internet safely. We implemented a unique usability testing process that protects user privacy and overcomes typical remote testing challenges.