The Access Assumption Audit.
Five checks that surface where a product quietly assumes conditions its users don’t have. Most products don’t fail in the happy path; they fail where an untested assumption meets a real constraint. This audit finds those assumptions before users do.
What does the product assume about the network? What happens on one bar of signal, on a connection that drops mid-task, on data that costs real money? Which flows fail silently, and which fail expensively?
What does the product assume about hardware? Old Android versions, small screens, low memory, shared devices, missing cameras or biometrics. Which features degrade, and which simply disappear?
What does the product assume about the user’s language? Untranslated states, idioms in error messages, formats for names, numbers and currency. Where does meaning break before the interface does?
What does the product assume about reading, financial and digital literacy? Dense copy, unfamiliar metaphors, jargon in moments of anxiety. Where does the product require expertise it never teaches?
What does the product assume about how it reaches people? App-store access, payment methods, KYC documents, SMS deliverability, agent networks, physical infrastructure. What blocks someone before they ever see screen one?
How I use it
I run the audit against a product’s critical flows: onboarding, the core transaction, and recovery from failure. Each check produces a list of assumptions, each assumption gets tested against the real conditions of the target market, and each failure gets a severity: blocks access entirely, degrades trust, or adds friction. The output is a ranked map of where the product breaks first.
It came out of a decade designing for markets that punish lazy assumptions: payments people are scared to make, classrooms with no reliable internet, farmers on feature phones. Get in touch if you want it run against your product.