Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future

ICTD interventions: trends over the last decade.

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

The Morphic Orator: Transmogrified Delivery on the Audio-Enabled Web

Audio is an effective but often overlooked component of World Wide Web delivery. Of the nearly twenty billion web pages estimated to exist, statistically few use sound. Those few using sound often use it poorly and with hardly any regard to theoretical and rhetorical issues. This thesis is an examination of the uses of audio on the World Wide Web, specifically focusing on how that use could be informed by current and historical rhetorical theory. A theoretical methodology is applied to suggest the concepts and disciplines required to make online audio more meaningful and useful. The thesis argues for the connection between the Web and the modern orator, its embodiment, its place in sound reproduction technology, and awareness of the limitations placed on it by design and convention

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

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

Usability engineering of interactive voice responsive (IVR) systems in oral users of Southern Africa

Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-109).This research study focuses on the feasibility of using the telephone as a tool for information access in the oral communities of Southern Africa. The OpenPhone and BGR systems are used as case studies and their designs have been influenced by field studies with the targeted users. The OpenPhone project aims to design an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) health information system that enables people who are caregivers for HIV/AIDS infected children to access relevant care-giving information by using a telephone in their native language of Setswana in Botswana, Southern Africa. The BGR system allows soccer fans to access results of recently played matches in Premier Soccer League (PSL) of South Africa

Interação Humano-Computador através de interfaces conversacionais: O caso de estudo do sistema NAVMETRO

Atualmente existe uma grande preocupação em criar produtos apelativos, que respondam às necessidades dos utilizadores, e que sejam fáceis de utilizar.A literatura propõe a aplicação de várias metodologias centradas no utilizador durante o projeto de design de interação. Contudo, isto não significa que estas sejam aplicadas como dita a literatura ou usadas por todos os profissionais.Vários autores referem as razões mais comuns para não serem aplicadas estas metodologias, no entanto, no universo de estudo, não existem estudos que façam referência às metodologias que realmente são postas em prática.Esta dissertação surge do interesse sobre a discrepância entre a teoria e a prática, propondo¬ se estudar as metodologias de projeto e avaliação do design de interação aplicadas no contexto real por empresas de pequena dimensão localizadas no Grande Porto.Foi utilizada a técnica de amostragem snowball e foram realizadas entrevistas presenciais semiestruturadas, das quais se conclui que existe uma preocupação com a usabilidade, embora a maioria dos entrevistados não realizem testes de usabilidade. Wireframes, mockups e protótipos são as ferramentas mais utilizadas, e o feedback de clientes e utilizadores é tido como muito importante para a iteração e desenvolvimento dos produtos.Currently there's a great concern to create compelling products that meet the needs of users and are easy to use.The literature proposes the use of several methodologies centered on the user during the interaction design project. However, this doesn't mean that they are implemented as proposed by the literature or are used by all professionals.Several authors report the most common reasons for not applying these methodologies, however, within the studied area, there are no studies that refer which methodologies are actually put into practice.This dissertation arises form an interest in the discrepancy between theory and practice, proposing to study project and evaluation methodologies in the interaction design project that are applied in a real context by small companies and teams located in the Porto metropolitan area.We used the snowball sampling technique and conducted in-person semi-structured interviews, from which we concluded that there is a concern with usability, even though most respondents do not perform usability tests. Wireframes, mockups and prototypes are the most used tools, and feedback from customers and users is considered very important for the iteration and development of products

Wireless ICT monitoring for hydroponic agriculture

It is becoming increasingly evident that agriculture is playing a pivotal role in the socio-economic development of South Africa. The agricultural sector is important because it contributes approximately 2% to the gross domestic product of the country. However, many factors impact on the sustainability of traditional agriculture in South Africa. Unpredictable climatic conditions, land degradation and a lack of information and awareness of innovative farming solutions are among the factors plaguing the South African agricultural landscape. Various farming techniques have been looked at in order to mitigate these challenges. Among these interventions are the introduction of organic agriculture, greenhouse agriculture and hydroponic agriculture, which is the focus area of this study. Hydroponic agriculture is a method of precision agriculture where plants are grown in a mineral nutrient solution instead labour- intensive activity that requires an incessant monitoring of the farm environment in order to ensure a successful harvest. Hydroponic agriculture, however, presents a number of challenges that can be mitigated by leveraging the recent mobile Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) breakthroughs. This dissertation reports on the development of a wireless ICT monitoring application for hydroponic agriculture: HydroWatcher mobile app. HydroWatcher is a complex system that is composed of several interlacing parts and this study will be focusing on the development of the mobile app, the front-end of the system. This focus is motivated by the fact that in such systems the front-end, being the part that the users interact with, is critical for the acceptance of the system. However, in order to design and develop any part of HydroWatcher, it is crucial to understand the context of hydroponic agriculture in South Africa. Therefore, complementary objectives of this study are to identify the critical factors that impact hydroponic agriculture as well as the challenges faced by hydroponic farmers in South Africa. Thus, it leads to the elicitation of the requirements for the design and development of HydroWatcher. This study followed a mixed methods approach, including interviews, observations, exploration of hydroponic farming, to collect the data, which will best enable the researcher to understand the activities relating to hydroponic agriculture. A qualitative content analysis was followed to analyse the data and to constitute the requirements for the system and later to assert their applicability to the mobile app. HydroWatcher proposes to couple recent advances in mobile technology development, like the Android platform, with the contemporary advances in electronics necessary for the creation of wireless sensor nodes, as well as Human Computer interaction guidelines tailored for developing countries, in order to boost the user experience

Interação Humano-Computador através de interfaces conversacionais: O caso de estudo do sistema NAVMETRO

Atualmente existe uma grande preocupação em criar produtos apelativos, que respondam às necessidades dos utilizadores, e que sejam fáceis de utilizar.A literatura propõe a aplicação de várias metodologias centradas no utilizador durante o projeto de design de interação. Contudo, isto não significa que estas sejam aplicadas como dita a literatura ou usadas por todos os profissionais.Vários autores referem as razões mais comuns para não serem aplicadas estas metodologias, no entanto, no universo de estudo, não existem estudos que façam referência às metodologias que realmente são postas em prática.Esta dissertação surge do interesse sobre a discrepância entre a teoria e a prática, propondo¬ se estudar as metodologias de projeto e avaliação do design de interação aplicadas no contexto real por empresas de pequena dimensão localizadas no Grande Porto.Foi utilizada a técnica de amostragem snowball e foram realizadas entrevistas presenciais semiestruturadas, das quais se conclui que existe uma preocupação com a usabilidade, embora a maioria dos entrevistados não realizem testes de usabilidade. Wireframes, mockups e protótipos são as ferramentas mais utilizadas, e o feedback de clientes e utilizadores é tido como muito importante para a iteração e desenvolvimento dos produtos.Currently there's a great concern to create compelling products that meet the needs of users and are easy to use.The literature proposes the use of several methodologies centered on the user during the interaction design project. However, this doesn't mean that they are implemented as proposed by the literature or are used by all professionals.Several authors report the most common reasons for not applying these methodologies, however, within the studied area, there are no studies that refer which methodologies are actually put into practice.This dissertation arises form an interest in the discrepancy between theory and practice, proposing to study project and evaluation methodologies in the interaction design project that are applied in a real context by small companies and teams located in the Porto metropolitan area.We used the snowball sampling technique and conducted in-person semi-structured interviews, from which we concluded that there is a concern with usability, even though most respondents do not perform usability tests. Wireframes, mockups and prototypes are the most used tools, and feedback from customers and users is considered very important for the iteration and development of products

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

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