Knowledge Mobilisation of Human-Computer Interaction for Development Research: core issues and domain questions

Human-computer interaction for development (HCI4D) operates at the intersection of Human-computer interaction (HCI) and information and communication technology for development (ICT4D). The interdisciplinary nature complicates knowledge transfer and articulation between the disciplines contributing to the HCI4D domain. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to highlight the core issues and domain questions in HCI4D towards supporting knowledge mobilization between researchers in HCI4D and the related fields. This paper presents an overview of the HCI4D literature (2007–2017) which investigated the domain questions, including the core issues, focus areas, the phenomena of interest, target users and the research methods. The findings were presented as a conceptual framework which comprises the core issues and salient elements for each of the domain questions. This framework was evaluated and checked against 2017–2019 literature to propose a final HCI4D knowledge mobilization framework (HCI4D_KMF). The contribution lies in knowledge transfer and articulation towards enriching discussions on HCI4D research.School of Computin

Education Technology Design and Deployment in HCI4D:A Nigerian Perspective

The decolonisation of knowledge has shown significant impact in reframing the understanding of technology as a means to the development of African communities. However, post-development narratives in HCI4D have failed to explicate how situated and grassroot alternatives can inform the innovative design of diverse perspectives and experience. As such, this thesis approaches this fundamental gap in our understanding of the practice of technology design and deployment by problematising conventional approaches for understanding, designing, and deploying educational technologies in the context of Nigeria. Through the adoption of a range of indigenous sensitivities, the thesis seeks to develop candidate approaches for analysing diverse cultural perspectives and for designing technologies that embody and extend them. Through the thematic analysis of empirical data, the thesis shows how stereotypical approaches to educational research and technology design presents postcolonial narratives of innovation in Nigeria as neo-colonial design agenda’s that needed to be appropriated in line with emerging conditions and relations in Africa. The interpretive analysis of the perspective of stakeholders in three Universities shows the relevance of developing context-specific pedagogical approach relevant to the politics of decolonialise blended education. The analysis also attempts to revive the arguments about the processes of technology diffusion and acceptance, showing the relevance and limit of traditional models for understanding the acceptance or rejection of technologies in an educational context. Using the Wittgensteinian approach of Winch and a range of Feminist positionalities, I attempted showing how a situated epistemological orientation can bring about envisioning alternative’s ways of articulating and translating transnational encounters and exchange of technological innovation. The sensitization and evaluation of the mundane practice of three software development firm shows the mythology of design innovation in/from Africa. This led to the consideration of how reframing the basic assumption about creativity from Africa could present African culture of innovation not merely as a passive space for the transfer and appropriation of technology but as a transitional space where innovate practices get regenerated and redistributed across already polarised boundaries of innovation. Finally, the thesis argues for an ‘ontological’ framing of designing localised and indigenous technologies. Through critical reflection on a range of issues associated with post-colonialism and post-development, I examine the possibilities that various historical tropes might offer to the reinvention of the African perspective on innovation. This leads to the consideration of how engaging in critical discussions about the future dimensions of African HCI can allow for grappling with the effect of the coloniality of being, power and knowledge. Developing on the ideas of futuring as a way of dealing with the complexities of the present – in this case the coloniality of the imagination - the thesis ends by discussing three tactical propositions for ‘remembering’ future identities of African innovation where the values of autonomy are known and acted upon

Challenges and paradoxes in decolonising HCI: A critical discussion

The preponderance of Western methods, practices, standards, and classifications in the manner in which new technology-related knowledge is created and globalised has led to calls for more inclusive approaches to design. A decolonisation project is concerned with how researchers might contribute to dismantling and re-envisioning existing power relations, resisting past biases, and balancing Western heavy influences in technology design by foregrounding the authentic voices of the indigenous people in the entire design process. We examine how the establishment of local Global South HCI communities (AfriCHI and ArabHCI) has led to the enactment of decolonisation practices. Specifically, we seek to uncover how decolonisation is perceived in the AfriCHI and ArabHCI communities as well as the extent to which both communities are engaged with the idea of decolonisation without necessarily using the term. We drew from the relevant literature, our own outsider/insider lived experiences, and the communities’ responses to an online anonymised survey to highlight three problematic but interrelated practical paradoxes: a terminology, an ethical, and a micro-colonisation paradox. We argue that these paradoxes expose the dilemmas faced by local non-Western researchers as they pursue decolonisation thinking. This article offers a blended perspective on the decolonisation debate in HCI, CSCW, and the practice-based CSCW scholarly communities and invites researchers to examine their research work using a decolonisation lens

Diversifying Future-Making Through Itinerative Design

Designed in California is a brand statement used by high-tech manufacturers to denote provenance and cachet of digital innovation and modernity. In this paper, we explore philosophically alternate design perspectives to those this statement embodies, reporting and reflecting on a long-term multi-sited project that seeks to diversify future-making by engaging communities of "emergent" users in "developing" regions. We argue that digital technologies are typically created with a design lens firmly focused on "first world" populations, assuming a base set of cultural norms, resource availabilities, and technological experience levels that do not strongly align with those of emergent users. We discuss and argue for inclusive technology design methods, present our approach, and detail indicative results and case studies as an example of the potential of these perspectives in uncovering radical innovations. Distilling findings and lessons learned, we present a methodology-itinerative design-that pivots between emergent user communities across multiple regions, driving digital innovation through the periphery of mainstream design's current remit

Making local knowledge matter: Exploring the appropriateness of pictorial decision trees as interaction style for non-literate communities to capture their traditional ecological knowledge

Sustainable natural resource management is one of the fundamental development challenges humanity faces today. The scale of the issues involved and the inadequacy of existing paradigms mean that there is an urgent need for innovative and appropriate solutions to enable scientifically-informed sustainable resource management of key environments. Local and indigenous communities often possess unique Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) about their natural resources, which despite being increasingly recognised as critical for sustaining and protecting the environment, it is difficult to capture in a digital format, in particular given the environment in which many communities live and their lack of technical knowledge. Yet, their knowledge is required in digital form to reach a wide audience and particularly those stakeholders who need to base their decisions on the knowledge provided. This thesis draws knowledge from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), HCI for Development (HCI4D), Software Engineering, Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) and Citizen Science to develop and evaluate methods and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools to enable communities to capture and share their local environmental conditions, information that can in turn lead to improvements in environmental governance and social-environmental justice. One core challenge in this endeavour is to enable lay users, especially those with limited technical skills or no prior exposure to technology and no (or basic) literacy or no formal education, to use smartphones to capture their TEK and share data with relevant stakeholders. To achieve that, this thesis explores whether pictorial decision trees are appropriate as an interaction mode for non-literate participants to capture geographical data. In the context of three case studies, taking place in Republic of the Congo and focusing on enabling local communities to participate in socio-environmental monitoring schemes regarding their forest, this thesis explores the opportunities and challenges in collaboratively developing software to realise this vision. The research findings and the methodological framework provide an approach and guidelines for the development and evaluation of ICT solutions in similar, challenging vii environments. The most significant finding of the thesis is that while pictographs are easily understood by participants, when employed in pictorial decision trees they proved to be challenging for them due to the categorisation and hierarchical structure of decision trees. Alternatively, interaction modes that employ audio or physical interfaces can alleviate these issues and assist participants to collect geographical data. This thesis also demonstrates how a participatory and iterative design approach led to the conception and evaluation of interaction modes that increase participants’ accuracy from 75% towards 95% and improve participants’ satisfaction, which could in turn increase the sustainability of the project. Finally, a number of methodological approaches were evaluated and amended in order to design and evaluate ICT solutions with non-literate, forest communities

Understanding Interaction Design Challenges in Mobile Extreme Citizen Science

Extreme citizen science is a bottom up practice used to empower people by supporting them, via processes and technological tools, to find solutions for local problems, but also to tackle major sustainability challenges of the 21st century. Methods and tools based on mobile computing have been utilized by communities in various parts of the world, from the Congo Basin through the Amazonian rain forest. However, extreme citizen science initiatives often face severe challenges as pre-designed technological solutions prove to be non-transferable to peculiar environments of rural developing regions. In this paper we collect and investigate evidence from the implementation of various extreme citizen science initiatives in the developing world. Our aim is to identify key obstacles towards their successful realization, mainly focusing on the problem of user interaction with mobile computing solutions. We conduct interviews with nine experienced researchers who all performed extensive fieldwork within these initiatives, and who reflect on the technology interaction, knowledge organization, inter-cultural, social and usability issues. Based on our analysis we report among others, symptomatic difficulties with abstractions, representational hierarchies, and navigation commands, as well as potential improvements that mobile technology developers can implement in order to create a more inclusive environment for extreme citizen science

A collaborative design process for educational digital resources in African higher education

Within Africa, access to digital library systems is critical in supporting higher level teaching, learning and research. Currently there is a high demand with inadequate resources which often produces poorly supported learning outcomes. The effectiveness of current resources is further limited by poor design processes, which is worsened by stakeholders (academics, e-learning technologists and digital librarians and designers) often working in isolation. Ultimately, designed resources become less user-centred and sustainable. This thesis sought to provide empirically developed collaborative design process guidance for design stakeholders developing educational digital resources within African higher education. Following a Human Computer Interaction research approach, eleven best practice digital library projects identified from three case studies of African universities (in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa) were investigated. Data was drawn from interviews, observations and an examination of documents. This investigation identified three interrelated factors that impacted on the design process (i. e. human relationships, innovative technologies and policies). The human relationships factor comprised multidisciplinary design stakeholders and included a subset i. e. design champions (multidisciplinary and domain champions) whose role changed the facilitation and eventual output of the other stakeholders in the design process. The multidisciplinary champions took on a participatory approach to engagement while the domain champions assumed an approach that was less engaging. The innovative technologies factor comprised universal technologies and `flexible' technologies (i. e. Web 2.0 applications and the Open Source Software) which supported the design process and enhanced user-centeredness and sustainability of the projects. Existing institutional and national policies supported stakeholder collaboration and application of the innovative technologies. The absence of any of these factors in the digital library projects weakened the design process and reduced effectiveness of digital resources. These three factors have been used to develop the Collaborative Educational Resources Design (CERD) process model as a guidance tool to support multidisciplinary design stakeholders indesigning effective digital resources

Co-designing in the real world: managing a multiple stakeholder design process with an NGO

Many ICT4D research projects work in collaboration with NGOs in order to meet their development objectives and to increase their interventions’ effectiveness. Herein, aspects of co-design are often applied, where the intention is to include all stakeholders as equal participants in the design process. However, collaborating with NGOs and with users who have reduced access to technology can be challenging. As a result, the ideals of co-design are not easily achieved, due to the vastly differing backgrounds of stakeholders in ICT4D projects. In this thesis, an explicit approach for managing the varying interactions between stakeholders is proposed and described through a case study. The approach was derived from ethnographic action research and participatory design methodologies, led by practical consideration from real-world constraints. The approach is structured around an interactive design process that includes the stakeholder groups in unique ways at each phase of the design process, in order to maximise the contributions in a way that respects their backgrounds and areas of expertise. The proposed approach was evaluated through its implementation in the design of a mobile recordkeeping application, in collaboration with an NGO in Cape Town, South Africa. The NGO comprises of two stakeholder groups: the staff and the micro-entrepreneurs who they empower. The NGO’s focus is to provide training and support over a two-year process to women from low-income communities, by teaching them how to manage their own businesses to become socially and financially independent. The objective of this case study was to design a mobile application that aligned with the recordkeeping curriculum of the NGO and meet the specific requirements and constraints of the target users. Through the implementation of the design approach, the students and staff were able to provide useful and complementary contributions towards the design of the system. A one-month field study of the application with a group of 21 student participants revealed that the system was a suitable solution and appropriately met the needs of the NGO and the end-users. The final evaluation of the stakeholders’ reflections on the design process revealed that it was an appropriate design process to have followed. The results further identified that care must be taken to clarify expectations at each stage of the design process, especially when external factors change, and to frequently communicate with all stakeholders involved. The design approach proposed and employed during this research project, and the unique way that it allowed the stakeholders to contribute, will benefit future ICT4D research projects that are faced with stakeholder groups that vary significantly, where traditional equal participation is not possible

Designing with community health workers: feedback-integrated multimedia learning for rural community health

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are an integral part of the rural health system, and it is imperative that their voices are accommodated in digital health projects. In the mobile health education project discussed in this thesis (The Bophelo Haeso project), we sought to find ways to amplify CHWs' voices, enabling them to directly influence design and research processes as well as technological outcomes. The Bophelo Haeso (BH) project equips CHWs with health videos on their mobile phones to use for educating and counselling the rural public. We investigated how to best co-design, with CHWs, a feedback mechanism atop the basic BH health education model, thus enabling their voices in the design process and in the process of community education. This thesis chronicles this inclusive design and research process - a 30-month process that spanned three sub-studies: an 18-month process to co-design the feedback mechanism with CHWs, a 12-month deployment study of the feedback mechanism and, overlapping with the feedback deployment study, a 17-month study looking at the consumption patterns of the BH educational videos. This work contributes to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in three distinct ways. First, it contributes to the growing knowledge of co-design practice with participants of limited digital experience by introducing a concept we termed co-design readiness. We designed and deployed explorative artefacts and found that by giving CHWs increased technical, contextual, and linguistic capacity to contribute to the design process, they were empowered to unleash their innate creativity, which in turn led to more appropriate and highly-adopted solutions. Secondly, we demonstrate the efficacy of incorporating an effective village-to-clinic feedback mechanism in digital health education programs. We employed two approaches to feedback - asynchronous voice and roleplaying techniques. Both approaches illustrate the combined benefits of implementing creative methods for effective human-to-technology and human-tohuman communication in ways that enable new forms of expression. Finally, based on our longitudinal study of video consumption, we provide empirical evidence of offline video consumption trends in health education settings. We present qualitative and quantitative analyses of video-use patterns as influenced by the CHWs' ways of being and working. Through these analyses, we describe CHWs and their work practices in depth. In addition to the three main contributions, this thesis concludes with critical reflections from the lessons and experiences of the 30-month study. We discuss the introduction of smartphones in rural villages, especially among elderly, low-literate, and non-English-speaking users, and present guidelines for designing relevant and usable smartphones for these populations. The author also reflects on her position as an African-born qualitative researcher in Africa, and how her positionality affected the outcomes of this research