Social Media Research for LGBT+ Communities

Amplifying LGBT+ voices in Cambodia

For those who self-identify as LGBT+, there are few opportunities in Cambodia to be able to connect with other community members, or to advocate for human and legal rights. OneWorld was running a social media advocacy program for LGBT+ rights, targeted at LGBT+ people in provincial areas of Cambodia. OneWorld hired us to carry out a risk assessment to understand the risks or potential risks that social media advocacy might have for members of the LGBT+ communities.

Researching without assumptions

Our work for OneWorld built on our experience as design researchers. We need to be sure that we don’t project our existing understanding, or make generalized assumptions of the risks faced by users, and that’s particularly important when working for LGBT+ communities in Cambodia – we are always deepening our understanding of our ethical duty to emphasize the limitations in our knowledge, and to listen before we speak.

Because of the tight timeframe for the research, we worked to get a simple snapshot into the behaviors and opinions of a small group of individuals in their moment, allowing OneWorld to understand the experience and view of specific participants. We documented what people told us so that we could give OneWorld a frame of reference for what some of the risks might be, along with some helpful indications of what they could do next.

We wanted to learn about the behaviors and motivations that shaped people’s views of the LGBT+ community, so we asked open-ended questions that gave space for people to have a deeper conversation if they wanted to. LGBT+ rights can be a difficult subject to talk about in Cambodia, and our facilitation team did a great job of asking questions and then stepping back to allow people to process before sharing their thoughts. Letting the question sit for a while meant we often got a more nuanced answer, and it’s in those silences when we are led by users.

It’s easy to talk about being user-led until you’re in a position when you have to allow users to lead. When we frame the question, we have a lot of control – for this project we knew we needed to ask questions which gave up that control, and allowed us to be led somewhere completely different than we might have expected.

Identifying potential risks

In order to identify the risks that LGBT+ communities face, our research team went to provincial areas of Cambodia to interview average citizens from different demographics to get an insight into their views and perceptions of LGBT+ communities. We then ran HCD-style workshops with representatives from different LGBT+ communities to talk through their story, and ideate how it would look and feel if it was shared digitally.

Research and human-centered design

We facilitate workshops but we get far more value if those participating are in a position to direct where the session goes. For that to happen, there needs to be a level of trust, and so we look for user-centric exercises that can help us to empathize with participants, and give them the freedom to take charge. For these workshops we used visual learning tools, integrating the perceptions we’d heard about in the field interviews, so that participants could explore how their story might be received by a wider audience. Exploring perceptions meant participants were able to talk about how they might change how participants feel about their stories being shared. From there we could begin to define some potential risk factors.

Risk awareness makes projects better

It was important to acknowledge what story sharing might mean for LGBT+ communities in terms of how they experience tolerance and acceptance, how story sharing would affect individual people, and whether it would put their jobs or family at greater risk. We found that people might expect to be accepted in localized situations, but that people are aware of the power of social media to reach beyond personal relationships and networks. Advocacy projects often require consent from participants and interviewees to share their story and photo, but for many people there isn’t a clear comprehension of what that truly means. We wanted to ensure that our risk assessment gave OneWorld a better understanding of the potential risks as understood by participants – and the risks they didn’t fully know about. From there OneWorld would be better placed to inform participants about the stories they were telling, and get proper consent.

Leveling up in research design

We always want to be led by the people we talk to, and this project was another great experience, helping us to see how good user-centric research can contribute to good service design. We felt privileged to be in a position to assist the LGBT+ community and our research team rose to the challenge, remaining committed to getting quality data in a way that was respectful to the people we were working with. Human-centred design is always exciting, as people often lead us in unexplored directions, and it was great to work out how to ask really important questions, and to contribute to improving the safety and the visibility of LGBT+ people in Cambodia.