Design and research are never more powerful than when they adapt to local realities. At YUX, after years of exploring digital inclusion in Nigeria, health innovation in Senegal, and financial inclusion in Kenya, we reached a simple conclusion: standard research tools aren’t always enough to capture the depth of experiences lived on the continent.
To address this need for local grounding, we created the NUDA Lab (Research & Localization Lab), our internal innovation hub. Today, we are proud to share the results of our experiments with you: the NUDA Toolkit.
What is the NUDA Toolkit?
It is a collection of research and design methods co-created and tested with local communities. These tools have been refined to be inclusive, tangible, and culturally relevant. This isn’t just a theoretical manual; it’s a practical guide designed to be:
Tangible & Inclusive: Tools adapted for low-literacy contexts or informal economies.
Easy to Apply: Each tool includes step-by-step instructions, field examples, and ready-to-use templates.
Context-Driven: Approaches that help teams listen deeply and co-create solutions rooted in everyday life.
A Glimpse of What’s Inside:
The toolkit offers various ways to listen, visualize, and co-create, such as:
Wari Moves: A spending simulation game that reveals true financial priorities without asking intrusive questions about money.
Story Cards: A card game to spark deep conversations on sensitive or taboo topics without pressure or shame.
Graphic Elicitation: A participatory method to design visuals that truly resonate with and respect community identities.
And many more: Score Cards to measure service quality, Time Machine to explore future aspirations, or Diary Studies to track daily routines.
A Living Resource and an Invitation to Collaborate
We are offering this in open access because we believe that through sharing, we can all better adapt design to the continent’s local realities. Test it, adapt it, and remix it!
This toolkit is a first iteration. Whether you are a designer, researcher, policymaker, or community leader, these tools are here to help you create solutions that truly make sense.
Download the full toolkit (PDF) below and let us know what you think!