Text-free user interfaces for illiterate and semiliterate users
Information Technologies and International Development
Speech interfaces for equitable access to information technology
Information Technologies and International Development
A comparative study of speech and dialed input voice interfaces in rural India
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Speech interfaces for information access by low literate users
Speech interfaces for information access by low literate users
Avaaj Otalo: a field study of an interactive voice forum for small farmers in rural India
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Where there's a will there's a way: mobile media sharing in urban india
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Deliberate interactions: characterizing technology use in Nairobi, Kenya
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Small-vocabulary speech recognition for resource-scarce languages
Proceedings of the First ACM Symposium on Computing for Development
Man versus machine: evaluating IVR versus a live operator for phone surveys in India
Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development
Spread and sustainability: the geography and economics of speech-based services
Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development
DocTalk: extending doctors' visits with personalized voice messages
Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development
Job opportunities through entertainment: virally spread speech-based services for low-literate users
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Play and power: a ludic design proposal for ICTD
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1
Psychological dynamics in ICTD projects
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development: Notes - Volume 2
Behavior analysis of low-literate users of a viral speech-based telephone service
Proceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development
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Entertainment has recently been shown to be a powerful motivator for mastering new technologies. We therefore set out to use viral entertainment to introduce telephone-based, speech-based services to low-literate people in developing countries. We describe Polly, a simple voice manipulation and forwarding system that went viral in Pakistan last year. Seeded once by 32 low-skilled office workers in a Pakistani university, in 3 weeks Polly amassed 2,032 users and 10,629 interactions. From analyzing the traffic and its content, it is evident that Polly has been used extensively for entertainment and social contact, but it has also been put to an unintended use as a voicemail and group messaging facility. This demonstrated the potential for speech based services, and the pent-up demand for entertainment, among our target population. Also of note, Polly's viral spread crossed gender and age boundaries and even established itself in a female population. However, it appears to have not crossed socioeconomic boundaries.