Study on the WeChat to improve user experience for Chinese older adults

As a consequence of the one-child policy, the older adult population in China—defined as 55 years and older—has been growing geometrically over the past few decades. Meanwhile, urban expansion-part of China\u27s modernization-gave rise to a situation in which young adults migrate to major cities, further stratifying the social structure in China and isolating older adult communities. With 620 million active users, WeChat is the most popular all-in-one social media app on smartphones in China. It has been increasingly adopted by older adult users to cope with the challenge of loneliness and unhappiness due to social changes. However, the interface design of the WeChat app appeals to active young adult users, making it challenging for older adult users and leaving them confused when they use the app, due to their decreased cognitive and physical performance as they age. The purpose of this study is to improve the WeChat user experience for Chinese older adults. A quantitative research method with an IRB-approved survey was conducted to collect the quantitative data concerning the older adult user experience of WeChat. A series of vigorous data analyses were implemented using Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS), a comprehensive statistical tool largely used in social sciences, marketing, healthcare, and more to extract information and knowledge in a data mining process. The findings revealed in the data analysis were further utilized to guide the design process to improve the user experience of WeChat, making the app much easier for older adults to use daily

Hierarchical categorisation of web tags for Delicious

In the scenario of social bookmarking, a user browsing the Web bookmarks web pages and assigns free-text labels (i.e., tags) to them according to their personal preferences. The benefits of social tagging are clear – tags enhance Web content browsing and search. However, since these tags may be publicly available to any Internet user, a privacy attacker may collect this information and extract an accurate snapshot of users’ interests or user profiles, containing sensitive information, such as health-related information, political preferences, salary or religion. In order to hinder attackers in their efforts to profile users, this report focuses on the practical aspects of capturing user interests from their tagging activity. More accurately, we study how to categorise a collection of tags posted by users in one of the most popular bookmarking services, Delicious (http://delicious.com).Preprin

Q&A: Multipurpose community telecentres in Africa

Gaston Zongo, former Executive Director of the Acacia Initiative (email: mailto:[email protected] [email protected]), explains why multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs) have succeeded or failed, and where they are headed. Can you give a short description of MCTs? MCTs are shared information and communication facilities for people in rural and isolated areas. They usually offer basic communication services such as telephone, fax, typing, photocopying, printing, training in the use of computers, email and electronic networking. What is the background to MCTs? MCTs are key strategic interventions by international donors to help bridge Africa´s digital divide. The main programme in this area is a joint initiative co-funded by ITU, IDRC/Acacia and UNESCO, in partnership with local NGOs and the national telecommunication operators. The countries that have benefited from the programme´s pilot phase include Benin, Mali, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Many other international aid agencies have joined the movement, including USAID-Leland, the I-Earn-supported Songhai Centre in Benin, the francophone Multimedia Centres, and the WorldLinks for Development initiative in Zimbabwe. What is the rationale behind MCTs? It´s a commonly shared vision by researchers that integrating rural development and universal access to ICT tools can empower disadvantaged communities and address sustainable development issues. That´s why evaluating the impact of MCTs on the social and economic development of communities is so important. The Evaluation and Learning System for Acacia (ELSA) has been instrumental in this respect, leading to the definition of various indicators and evaluation guidelines, the organization of seminars and workshops, and ongoing online discussions and forums. What has been the outcome of evaluations so far? Many pilot MCT projects have failed because of common problems such as illiteracy, language barriers, low incomes, and the lack of or expensive power supplies. Another key problem has been that various projects have focused on the technology and infrastructure rather than on the content. This is not surprising considering the selected areas are usually under-served by national telecommunication networks and require an investment of more than ?500,000 per MCT. That´s way above the annual GDP of the MCT´s service area?and beyond the management capability of the targeted community. Also, using a philanthropic rather than maket-oriented approach, developers have not paid enough attention to the scalability and cost-recovery aspects of MCTs. It would have been better to apply the ´village bakery´ model, in which investors from African villages build local, scalable bakeries and set a price for the bread that local people can afford. MCTs that have been designed to deliver specific services to a given community, and are operated by the community, have proven to be the most successful. Examples include ENDA-Ecopole´s Cyberpop projects, in which community access is designed to help women with their fishing business. A final stumbling block has been African governments. Contributions from governments have rarely gone beyond the provision of premises, and no important long-term measures have been taken to support MCT initiatives. The sustainability of MCTs has also been dramatically jeopardized by the recent reforms of the telecommunication sector. They have reduced the financial capacity of the incumbent operators to invest in rural areas or to do something about the high costs of line subscriptions and connection charges. Where have MCTs succeeded? They have helped raise awareness at various levels, resulting in a greater commitment of African governments to bridge the digital divide. Africa is strongly backed by donor agencies and the international private sector. There is a clear global trend to enhance community access to ICT tools through software with low access costs. The Indian Simputer, a low-cost, hand-held computer based on Open Source software, is a good example. It is an alternative to the PC that allows people to use simple icons to get information via the Internet, and thus overcomes problems such as language barriers and illiteracy. Many African countries have already indicated their interest in introducing the Simputer for disadvantaged communities. In countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda, private cybercafé owners are moving into the rural areas because of the fierce competition in urban centres. Meanwhile, many post office companies are planning to transform their rural premises into cybercafés, emulating countries like Brazil and China. These positive developments are supported by continuing World Bank funding for rural telecommunications and new services like Uganda Telecom´s Freenet, which makes every landline an Internet line without the need for subscription fees or registration. In short, there are tremendous opportunities for the development of sustainable community access in Africa. The African governments are starting to define their e-government, e-governance, e-democracy and e-education strategies. And to ensure that most people will fully participate in these initiatives, the governments have started to draft new, nation-wide telecentre programmes to be implemented in partnership with the private sector, or at least using business-oriented models

Improving rural connectivity

New telecommunication systems using wireless and satellite technologies have recently become available that will radically reduce the cost of connectivity. They will also make access possible from virtually anywhere on the planet, without the need for traditional cables. Because these systems can use the Internet, which allows you to share your connection with anyone, even small organizations and individuals in rural areas in developing countries can now afford relatively cheap access, especially where there is no existing telecom infrastructure. Radio transmitters for broadband ´line of sight´ connections now cost less than €100. As a result, hundreds of user groups around the world are setting up their own local wireless infrastructure for Internet sharing. Long-distance links using terrestrial HF radio and Ku-band satellite transmitters now cost only €1000-€2000. In addition, satellite companies like Hughes, Panamsat, Intelsat and Ipstar are providing connectivity superior to any dialup system in the developing world for less than €200 per month. When these two systems are combined, connectivity can be affordably brought to remote rural areas via satellite, with the cost of the terrestrial radio connections being shared among users. Market access Unfortunately, most developing countries do not yet allow people to set up their own telecom links in this fashion - either through outright prohibition, or by levying unaffordable licence fees. The pace of technological change in this area has been so rapid that most policy makers are unaware of the implications, and still conform to traditional models of telecommunication development in which market access is restricted to a few licensed telecom operators. Consequently, the most important challenge for rural connectivity is no longer technological, but centres on building awareness among national policy makers of these new models of access provision and the benefits of owner-deployed and owner-financed infrastructure. Restrictions on the number of licensed operators are usually justified by the need to ensure that the operators are able to generate sufficient income to roll out infrastructure in under-served areas without the funds being siphoned off by too many competitors. However, experience since the breakup of AT&T has shown that the only way to ensure efficient service delivery is to bring self-interest fully into play by opening up markets and using competition to do much of the regulating. In practical terms, while greater competition and more owner provisioning in the telecom industry may indeed result in some overlap and duplication of resources by the different competitors, the overall operation of the sector is more efficient than when only a few licensed operators have access to the market. It has long been assumed that provision of rural connectivity in developing countries is unprofitable. This assumption has bolstered the arguments of those who favour limiting market access, and who believe that revenues from the more profitable urban areas are needed to cross-subsidize access in rural areas. However, the plummeting cost of bandwidth and the increasing value of telecoms links that can carry not only voice calls, but also valuable Internet data and e-commerce transactions, mean that this assumption must be seriously re-examined. When these new dynamics are considered alongside the often underestimated levels of rural wealth (bolstered by remittances from the Diaspora) and the potential of owner-financed, owner-deployed wireless and satellite infrastructure, it is clear that policy makers need to rethink their traditional approaches to achieving rural connectivity. Mike Jensen is an independent ICT consultant based in South Africa (email: [email protected]).New wireless and satellite technologies can radically reduce the cost of connectivity. Unfortunately, most developing countries do not yet allow people to implement them

Editorial: The status of rural connectivity

Five years ago, expectations regarding new opportunities offered by the Internet to developing countries were high. Privatization of national telecoms and a glut of (international) bandwidth would drive the costs of Internet use down to almost zero. Mega satellite projects would solve all rural connectivity problems in developing countries by creating an ´Internet-in-the-sky´, instantly lifting farmers from their economic isolation. Most of these optimistic predictions did not materialize because the underlying causes of the lack of rural connectivity have been difficult to tackle?they are of an institutional rather than technical nature. Many early efforts to bring the Internet to rural communities turned out to be expensive fiascos due to their ´techno-push´ approach and insufficient focus on the actual information needs of farmers. However, the past five years do not represent ´lost Internet time´. Valuable lessons have been learned, and many practical initiatives to improve rural connectivity have been taken up. In this edition of ICT Update, Gaston Zongo takes stock of lessons learned in the many multipurpose community telecentre projects that have been implemented in Africa. David Leeming describes how People First Network has ingeniously applied high-frequency radio technology to overcome the seemingly insoluble connectivity problems of Pacific Island states. Tobias Eigen shows that email offers underutilized potential for rural areas that face poor connectivity conditions. Michiel Hegener focuses on recent, promising developments in satellite technology that could bring wireless connectivity within affordable reach of any development organization or small enterprise in rural areas. Mike Jensen looks into the future and outlines the rural connectivity challenges that lie ahead in the next five years. Ingo Mackintosh has compiled a comprehensive list of annotated web resources on promising projects and informative articles, representing the current state of rural connectivity in ACP countries.Five years ago, expectations regarding new opportunities offered by the Internet to developing countries were high

Analysing appropriation and usability in social and occupational lives: An investigation of Bangladeshi farmers' use of mobile telephony

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how Bangladeshi farmers interact with mobile telephony and how they negotiate the resulting difficulties. In doing so, the paper seeks to identify how farmers integrate mobile telephony into their daily lives, and what factors facilitate and limit their use of mobile telephony. Design/methodology/approach – The research was based on ethnographic observation, interviews and focus group discussions, collected through four months of fieldwork, conducted in two remote areas of Bangladesh. Findings – It was found that Bangladeshi farmers' use of mobile telephony is inhibited due to language barriers, a lack of literacy, unfamiliar English terminologies, inappropriate translation to local language (Bengali) and financial constraints. However, the social, occupational and psychological benefits from mobile telephony motivate them to use and appropriate it through inventive use and adaptation. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that current understanding of usability needs to be interwoven with that about the appropriation of technology in order to develop a better understanding of the use and consequent integration of a technology in daily lives. Practical implications – The paper adds to the argument for a bottom-up approach for ICT-enabled intervention in development activities and for the mobile telephony manufacturers and network providers it contributes to understanding of the rural consumer market of a developing country. Originality/value – The paper presents an original conceptual diagram that combines the concept of usability and appropriation

Making Poverty History? How Activists, Philanthropists, and the Public Are Changing Global Development

From August 1 to 3, 2007, fifty preeminent U.S. and international experts from government, business, academia, and the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors came together at the Aspen Institute to explore the changing contours of the global development community. By examining the common challenges development actors face -- promoting accountability, using resources effectively, and achieving scale and sustainability -- participants aimed to spur successful practices and establish foundations for collaboration among the expanding field of players determined to lift the lives of the world's poorest people

Globalization, Rights, and Judicial Review in the Supreme Court of India

This article examines the broader and evolving role of the Supreme Court of India in an era of globalization by examining the Court’s decisionmaking in rights-based challenges to economic liberalization, privatization, and development policies over the past three decades. While the Court has been mostly deferential in its review of these policies and projects, it has in many cases been active and instrumental in remaking and reshaping regulatory frameworks, bureaucratic structures, accountability norms, and in redefining the terrain of fundamental rights that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other litigants have invoked in challenges to these policies. This article argues that the Court has deployed rights as “structuring principles” in order to evaluate and review liberalization and privatization policies, based on constitutional or statutory illegality, arbitrariness or unreasonableness, or corruption, and framed rights as “substantive-normative principles” to assess development policies. This article argues that the Court’s particular approach to rights-based judicial review has resulted in the creation of “asymmetrical rights terrains” that privilege the rights and interests of private commercial and industrial stakeholders and government officials and agencies, above the rights and interests of labor, villagers, farmers, and tribes. The article concludes by suggesting that the Court’s approach to judicial review reflects a unique model of adjudication in which high courts play an active role in shaping the meaning of rights, regulatory structure and norms, and the legal-constitutional discourse of globalization

Mobile phone use across cultures: A comparison between the UK and the Sudan

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University.Over the last decade the use of mobile phones has increased dramatically everywhere by people from different cultural backgrounds. However, while such technological adoption move on at an ever increasing pace all over the world, the key problem for designers and developers of mobile phones is how to develop mobile phone services that effectively support the dynamic and flexible communication needs of such diverse groups of users. To counter this problem, this thesis focused on establishing how people from different cultural backgrounds use mobile phones to achieve their communicative, social and informational goals. Questionnaires and interviews were undertaken and analysed to achieve this. The findings from the analysis led to the development of two prototypes missed call services; the icon-based missed call service (IBMCS) and the personalised icon-based missed call service. Several key findings emerged from this research. For example, mobile phone users in the Sudan and the UK differed in the way they used their mobile phones especially in the public places. British participants were more comfortable using their mobile phones in public sphere. British and Sudanese stated that they would like to use an IBMCS to support their communication needs. However, Sudanese users were more keen than the British participants on personalising the developed missed call service to aid the management of their communication needs and to better coordinate their activities. The evaluation of the personalised IBMCS highlighted an important redesign implication, such as allowing the receiver to manipulate the receipt of missed calls in public settings

Africa 2060: good news from Africa, April 16, 2010

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, As the keystone event of a research program called “Africa 2060,” the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University convened a conference on April 16, 2010 called Africa 2060: Good News from Africa. The program featured more than a dozen expert panelists from Boston University and across the world, and the approximately 100 participants included many African scholars and citizens from the continent who contributed to lively and well-informed discussion. The Pardee Center conference was co-sponsored by Boston University’s Africa Studies Center (ASC), the African Presidential Archives & Research Center (APARC), and the Global Health & Development Center (GHDC).This report provides commentary reflecting upon and information pertaining to the substance of the conference. An introductory overview looks at the major issues discussed at the event, which are placed within the larger literature on Africa’s future. Four short essays prepared by Boston University graduate students provide readers with more specific reflections and highlights of each conference session and the main issues discussed by panelists. The final section presents analyses of key trends and projections related to societal, economic, and governance issues for Africa and a commentary on what this information tells us about the drivers that will determine the continent’s future