Designing a graphical user interface for healthcare workers in rural India
Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems
Design considerations for a financial management system for rural, semi-literate users
CHI '03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Design studies for a financial management system for micro-credit groups in rural india
CUU '03 Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Universal usability
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Tamil market: a spoken dialog system for rural India
CHI '06 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Social dynamics of early stage co-design in developing regions
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Optimal audio-visual representations for illiterate users of computers
Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web
Text-free user interfaces for illiterate and semiliterate users
Information Technologies and International Development
Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature
The Information Society
A comparison of mobile money-transfer UIs for non-literate and semi-literate users
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
Intermediated technology use in developing communities
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Beyond strict illiteracy: abstracted learning among low-literate users
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Some evidence for the impact of limited education on hierarchical user interface navigation
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1
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There is increasing interest in using computing applications towards the socio-economic development of the poor. However, because poverty commonly correlates with illiteracy, researchers have identified various usability challenges that low-literate users may encounter in interacting with traditional text-based UIs. To counter such problems, researchers have proposed non-textual UIs for these users. However, most current work focuses exclusively on illiteracy (the inability to read) per se, with little recognition to other problems or the overall context in which a user is situated. In this paper we suggest that the inability to read is only one of several possible concerns that prevent useful interaction of existing computing (PC and mobile phone) UIs by low-literate users. Through our ethnographic and usability studies with 400 low-literate, low-income subjects across India, the Philippines and South Africa, we find a host of nuanced issues which mediate how a user interacts with computing technologies. Such issues include: cognitive difficulties, collaboration, cultural etiquette, experience and exposure, intimidation, mediation, motivation, pricing, power relations, social standing, and others. We observe that these factors can have far-reaching influence on the design of UIs as well as services for low-literate populations.