56 research outputs found

    User Interface Challenges of Banking ATM Systems in Nigeria

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    The use of banking automated teller machine (ATM) technological innovations have significant importance and benefits in Nigeria, but numerous investigations have shown that illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians do not perceive them as useful or easy-to-use. Developing easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces is essential to accommodate over 40% illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians, who are potential users of banking ATM systems. The purpose of this study was to identify strategies software developers of banking ATM systems in Nigeria use to create easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces for a variety of people with varying abilities and literacy levels. The technology acceptance model was adopted as the conceptual framework. The study\u27s population consisted of qualified and experienced developers of banking ATM system interfaces chosen from 1 organization in Enugu, Nigeria. The data collection process included semistructured, in-depth face-to-face interviews with 9 banking ATM system interface developers and the analysis of 11 documents: 5 from participant case organizations and 6 from nonparticipant case organizations. Member checking was used to increase the validity of the findings from the participants. Through methodological triangulation, 4 major themes emerged from the study: importance of user-centered design strategies, importance of user feedback as essential interface design, value of pictorial images and voice prompts, and importance of well-defined interface development process. The findings in this study may be beneficial for the future development of strategies to create easy-to-use ATM system interfaces for a variety of people with varying abilities and literacy levels and for other information technology systems that are user interface technology dependent

    WATER alert!: using mobile phones to improve community perspective on drinking water quality in South Africa

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    Drinking water quality, in many parts of South Africa, is far below acceptable standards. With a high number of illnesses and deaths in the country due to diarrheal diseases, the impact is critical. This research addresses the challenge of reporting complex and critical water quality information in a way that is accessible to all South Africans. High illiteracy rates, the presence of 11 official languages and limited-to-no access to technology in many areas, present some of the major challenges to the design of an alert notification and reporting system. We describe the design of WATER Alert!, a symbol-based prototype mobile phone application to alert and report water quality information to consumers and allow for citizen involvement in water management. Our findings from a preliminary evaluation revealed that WATER Alert! is simple to use and has a perceived usefulness amongst participants. The findings also suggest that such an application would help to improve consumers' understanding of water quality information leading to an improved Community Perspective on drinking water quality

    ICTD interventions: trends over the last decade.

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    In this study, we examine Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) technology interventions that have been developed over the last decade. The purpose is to provide a snapshot of the trends that have characterized ICT4D technology interventions from the period starting 1995 to 2010. This paper presents three general dimensions i.e. ICTs, development and research which are further broken down into seven variables used to categorize projects over this period. The seven variables include: telecommunication, terminal device, target group, domain area, region, research methods and discipline. Results suggest that applied research stood out as the methodology of choice; health and education as the most researched areas; hand-held interventions as the most popular choice of solutions; and Computer Science, Informatics and Information Systems as the disciplines that offer ICT4D technology interventions. Consequently, we argue that these trends will facilitate understanding the past performance of ICT4D, both as an academic field and as an area of development practice, and identify defining ideas on the potential directions for the future

    Icon Types, Classical and Expressive Aesthetics, Pleasurable Interaction and Satisfaction with the Process of Semi-literate Users

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    The hedonic role of icons has been undermined in contemporary human computer interaction research, though users have specifically mentioned the importance of icons while performing aesthetic evaluation of user interfaces. Previous research has also neglected factors like aesthetics and pleasurable interaction while comparing efficiency of same interface elements. In this regard, current study investigates how different types of icons in mobile applications affect the aesthetics and pleasurable interactions of semi-literate users. This study also investigates the extent to which aesthetics and pleasurable interactions affect satisfaction with the process. The study addresses these issues from the theoretical perspectives of metaphor and aesthetics. Significant differences were observed for aesthetics and pleasurable interactions between two different types of icon sets, namely metaphoric and idiomatic. This study suggests that for higher evaluation of aesthetics and pleasurable interaction for semi-literate users, specific icon types are preferred

    Using ICT4D in Educative Training for Reducing Road Accidents in Developing Countries

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    All over the world road accidents are the major causes of death, it stems from reckless driving and poor driving culture. The rate of road accidents in developing nations is a lot higher than that of the developed nations. However, while observing the Finnish road users and their driving culture, where commuters respect road rules and pedestrians, inspired the thought of designing a platform more suitable for teaching road users and motorist in developing countries. Usually, majority of public road drivers in Nigeria, a developing country, are low literate; thus, they opt against using text-based road use highway-code information as they cannot read or interpret them due to their level of education. Therefore, they lack information that is supposed to serve as a guide in the prevention of road accident. Consequently, this thesis explores the opportunity of using the knowledge of ICT4D in building an interactive prototype application for teaching road use and regulation. The application designed incorporates text-free UIs which afford users the use of image/graphics with audio annotations. In fact, text-free UIs has been previously used in making services available to low literate users in sectors such as health, banking and job search with success. Therefore, a text free prototype application is designed to aid drivers, especially low literate and literate but novice technology users, so they can easily learn road use and its regulations. The application will be in a quiz-game like format, designed in three phases which are; User centered design, application version Phido and (PhidoE with English language audio output) as Experiment 1 for literate participants and Experiment 2 (PhidoY with Yoruba language audio output version) for low literate participants. In addition, the application is strategized and gamified with game-like elements as the quiz game show “Who wants to be a millionaire”, to increase both learning motivation and performance. Furthermore, designing and testing was done at Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria. With test results showing that text-free UI on road use should be suitable for teaching road users in Nigeria, in that it provides access in learning road use for majority of low literate users and literate but novice technology users. Findings from research interviews, observations and questionnaire were used in generating design recommendation on text free user interface for road use

    Interactive visualisation for low literacy users

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    Sixteen percent (5.2 million) of the UK population possess low levels of literacy. The Government and other non-profit organisations, due to funding reforms, are forced to reduce the provision of face-to-face advice, and therefore, are pushing advice services via telephone or internet. As a consequence, low literacy users are experiencing difficulties finding the information they need to solve their day to day problems online. This thesis evaluates how walk in clients of a local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) who come to get social service information, obtain information online using the Adviceguide website. The thesis presents two challenges: (i) knowing the users in a way that can help consider design solutions that are probably not in a typical designer’s standard repertoire of design patterns, and (ii) knowing what is the problem that needs to be addressed. It is not simply an issue of usability or the need for simpler language, but understanding that these low literacy users are very different from the high literacy users. These low literacy users need this information to solve their day-to-day problems and are likely to be less successful in doing so. By providing an information architecture that permits them of a reasoning space and context, while supporting less abstract skills by visualized information in an unconventional way. The above challenges leave us with these research questions to address: what is the basis of such a design, how can these designs be incorporated into existing non-traditional interface proof of concept and finally how can these designs be evaluated

    Designing Culturally Sensitive Icons for User Interfaces: An approach for the Interaction Design of smartphones in developing countries

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    A adesão a dispositivos móveis nos países em desenvolvimento, particularmente na África subsaariana, tem crescido de forma acelerada e constante. Os países em desenvolvimento são caracterizados por um número distinto de utilizadores culturalmente distintos e de diferentes segmentos socioeconómicos. Por consequência, a diversidade cultural deve ser reconhecida de forma a facilitar o processo de interação dos utilizadores com o sistema, mas também de modo a promover o uso de dispositivos móveis entre novos utilizadores, analfabetos e indivíduos provenientes de diferentes culturas. Além disso, soluções de Information and Communications Technologies direcionados para países em desenvolvimento são importantes, e é essencial facilitar o reconhecimento e a interação dos utilizadores com as interfaces gráficas.O estudo teve como objectivo avaliar o nível de conhecimento dos utilizadores da África subsaariana e tentar melhorar o seu reconhecimento através de culturally sensitive icons, sendo estes definidos através das preferências de um grupo cultural. Adicionalmente, um repositório para material cultural foi criado de forma a auxiliar profissionais no desenvolvimento de soluções centradas no utilizador. Além do beneficio de poupar espaço no ecrã, ícones não requerem leitura e são imediatamente reconhecidos uma vez que o utilizador se familiariza com a sua representação, fazendo destes um factor importante na usabilidade de aplicações móveis.Os resultados demonstram que a cultura tem um impacto importante no reconhecimento e interpretação de ícones, e profissionais necessitam de estar familiarizados com as representações e ações comuns para o público alvo. Além disso, o estudo demonstra as vantagens e desvantagens deste processo, menciona as limitações que os profissionais encontram na criação de soluções para regiões em desenvolvimento, e o trabalho futuro na área é discutido.The adhesion to smartphones in developing regions, mainly in the Sub-Saharan region, has been steadily growing. Developing countries are characterized by an array of culturally diverse users from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, cultural diversity must be contemplated in order to ease the interaction process of the users with the system, but also to promote the usage of smartphones among novice users, illiterates and individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Moreover, solutions of Information and Communication Technologies aimed at supporting development in these regions are important, therefore making it essential to ease users' recognition of and interaction with graphical user interfaces.This study aims to assess the level of icon recognition from users from the Sub-Saharan region and attempt to improve it through culturally sensitive icons, defined as icons based upon the preferences of the cultural group. In addition, a repository for cultural material is conceived in order to assist professionals to promote user-centered design techniques for culturally different groups. Besides having the ability to save space in the screen, icons often do not require reading and are immediately recognized once the user is familiarized with their representation, thus constituting an important factor on mobile application usability.The results demonstrate that culture has a substantial impact in icon recognition and interpretation, and professionals must become familiarized with the representations and actions that are deemed common by the target audience. Furthermore, the study reveals the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, mentions the limitations professionals encounter in the development of solutions for developing regions, and discusses future work in the area

    Culturally-relevant augmented user interfaces for illiterate and semi-literate users

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    This thesis discusses guidelines for developers of Augmented User Interfaces that can be used by illiterate and semi-literate users. To discover how illiterate and semi-literate users intuitively understand interaction with a computer, a series of Wizard of Oz experiments were conducted. In the first Wizard of Oz study, users were presented with a standard desktop computer, fitted with a number of input devices to determine how they assume interaction should occur. This study found that the users preferred the use of speech and gestures which mirrored findings from other researchers. The study also found that users struggled to understand the tab metaphor which is used frequently in applications. From these findings, a localised culturally-relevant tab interface was developed to determine the feasibility of localised Graphical User Interface components. A second study was undertaken to compare the localised tab interface with the traditional tabbed interface. This study collected both quantitative and qualitative data from the participants. It found that users could interact with a localised tabbed interface faster and more accurately than with the traditional counterparts. More importantly, users stated that they intuitively understood the localised interface component, whereas they did not understand the traditional tab metaphor. These user studies have shown that the use of self-explanatory animations, video feedback, localised tabbed interface metaphors and voice output have a positive impact on enabling illiterate and semi-literate users to access information.TeXAdobe Acrobat 9.51 Paper Capture Plug-i
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