Results tagged “literacy”
Designing Services for Financial Inclusion
Oct 30, 2009
For those of you who are interested in designing services for financial inclusion - a short interview with the hosts of the Mobile Money Transfer conference here.
Slides from the keynote and workshop to following in the coming week.
Photo: pre-paid phone credit salesman in Kabul.
Location:United Arab Emirates » Dubai
Afghanistan » Kabul
Fix Up / Look Sharp
Sep 17, 2009
A heads up for those of you working in the mobile money space and with a bit of dough of your own to burn - I'll be giving a keynote here and co-hosting a workshop with Olga Morawczynsk, the former on future mobile, and the latter on designing financial services for the poor financially unserviced.
The quandary is this: Dubai's underbelly has a definite allure particularly now that the financial crisis has hit; but with so many interesting jumping off points from Dubai's Terminal 2 it's all too easy to buy ticket, shut eyes, make a wish and jump.
Location:United Arab Emirates » Dubai
Upcoming Attractions
Jul 02, 2009
A thriplet of speaking engagement that should enthrall and excite in equal measure:
Pattern Recognition 19th July, Shanghai. On the challenges of exploring patterns in human behaviour, culture, society and technology and the art of pulling something of value out of where they all collide. Interested? Follow @janchip for the venue announcement. Very limited seating.
Designing for Illiteracy at the Mobile Money Transfer Conference in Dubai. October 26/27th. An update to this original essay and presentation based on the rampant spread/adoption of mobile technologies around the world. Will also co-host a workshop on the same subject with Olga Morawczynski
The End of The ... As We Know It October 2/3rd Providence Rhode Island at the A Better World By Design conference. The full list of, way more talented speakers here (I assume they'll update my bio at some point).
Sometimes you want the elephant and sometimes you don't - the trick is in knowing what time this is. Photos from Mumbai.
United Arab Emirates » Dubai
United States » Providence
China » Shanghai
Hoops, Dreams (Micro Banking)
Dec 08, 2008
Do you remember your first time, your first ever email?
In 1992 or thereabouts I was sitting in a dusty office in the third floor of London Guildhall University - books, manuals and papers waiting to be graded piled up around me, staring at the green command line of a clunky desktop computer, a flashing cursor taunting a response if only I knew the hidden syntax. With a list of commands written on a scrap of paper and a single email address belonging to a colleague working out of another university I typed the message, typed 'send' and pressed return. The very idea of sending a message electronically to be received instantly was for me a revelation, an indicator of the revolution that was to follow. A pulse quickened.
I can hear you sighing - email is soooo last century, on a par with becoming teary-eyed about sending a telegram, steam ships or horse drawn buggies. Except that we all have an equivilent of my first email experience - whether its the instant frisson that came from your first IM exchange, the scary-fast thrill of making a purchase using Amazon one-click or simply seeing your Facebook network grow. Magic, proceeded by moments of tension and terror - what happens if I press the wrong button? Can I change things later if I don't like how it turns out? Who are these people? What just happened? Until over time it becomes second nature - the technology just fades into the background and the cycle continues - today's cutting edge becoming tomorrow's standard.
We live in a world where technology, in its various guises is unevenly distributed - what is run of the mill to you is the new new thing to someone else, and no matter how where you are on the early adopter curve - there's always someone who is a few steps ahead. So it should be no surprise that something as simple as opening a saving's account can have the same impact - if, for example you're one of the hundreds of millions of people for whom banking is currently out of reach.
Reader's may be interested in Abhilasha a pilot study by New Delhi start up Eko and the Centurion Bank of Punjab that offers a no-frills interest earning saving account that be updated and managed through a mobile phone with sign-up and support provided by service representative neighbourhood/relationship officers. The service faces many challenges ranging from the cost of acquiring and servicing new customers, generating commercial revenue from servicing low income customer accounts; a lack of textual and technical literacy; and customer access to the human or technological network required to make the transfer.
The solution that Eko has adopted is to make use of a baseline mobile phone technology called Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to make transfers and check balances by dialing/typing in a string of characters. For example entering *543*190123456789*100*1133740274# and pressing the Call button (*short code*recipient's mobile number*amount*signature with PIN# with the PIN coming from a printed booklet issued to the account holder) would send 100 rupees to a particular account number. A video complete with natty soundtrack explains how it works here.
The UX people amongst you will have recoiled at the usability of a command line string - who, let alone an illiterate customer could possibly learn something so complex?
Service design is challenging but a number of factors stand in Eko's favour - the service leverages a known behaviour (dialing a long phone number) on a ubiquitously available technology (mobile phones) and only uses the most basic features of that technology (USSD/SMS). It also leverages a neighbourhood network of service representatives to sign up and assist (new) customers, which in turn supports what we term proximate usage - where it's not necessary to know how to do everything yourself if there's someone nearby who can take care of it for you. If you live in a country like the UK you're more likely to pay someone to help out, in India there's a higher likelihood and acceptance of turning to your extended network. Lastly, even if it means learning an arcane set of commands, it provides access to rudimentary banking where before there was none. For every feature, product or service: how is it discovered? what does it enable? how motivated is the user to learn? Yeah it could be simpler, but sometimes the most elegant solution is the one that is accessible to everyone and that works.
In the beginning was the command line. When the search engine is the primary interface and you start to go beyond the basics we've gone full circle.
Related: a video about designing for illiterate consumers; and consider the implication of providing an email account and 1GB of storage to the billion or so people who have never used email, but currently own a mobile phone.
Hello World.
Location:India » Delhi » New Delhi
Lliteracy Plus, Published
May 27, 2008
Those of you who like your mobile phone related research in print may want to peruse Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies edited by James E. Katz. Based on the time and effort it took James & MIT Press to bring this to print - I'm guessing it's a labour of love.
The book contains 32 chapters in sections covering: digital divides and social mobility; sociality and co-presence; politics and social change; and culture and imagination. My own minor contribution comes in a chapter titled Understanding Illiteracy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone Communication. Yeah it is online. The slides that accompany the essay can be viewed below or download here (PowerPoint, 6MB), or you could just watch the video.
Photos from one of the literacy research field studies in Hangzhou, China, 2004, taken by the students working on the project.
Location:Japan
Japan » Tokyo » Mishuku
Japan » Tokyo
Magnetic Attraction
Oct 31, 2007
Movie poster for non-Japanese film.
Of note: use of the first person in communicating I'm Sorry; the readers' literacy to understand that it is a warning sign - even if they don't have the english language skills to understand the full meaning of the text.
Magnetic attraction? The extent to which that format of warning sign is employed as a magnet for the people it is designed to warn.
Location:Japan
Japan » Tokyo
Format / Textual Literacy
Sep 28, 2007
A gentle reminder of human limitations during the drive up to SFO this morning - radio advertising urging listeners to "call 1-800-MEOW, thats 1-800-M-E-O-W", where meow was spelt out letter by letter. What level of literacy can be assumed? Why does 1-800-gonorrhea get so few callers? To what extent does the word act as an effective fllter for those in the know. Like? 1-800-Auberdine
Location:United States » San Francisco
United States
EPFL Presentation Downloads
Feb 19, 2007
The slides from last-last week's presentation at the Ecole Polytechnique Fedarale de Lausanne were culled from previously published research on Cultures of Repair and Innovation in India and China [4MB] and Communication, Literacy & Design [6MB]. Thanks Nicholas for hosting and students for sharing thoughts.
A question was asked about whether rural consumers were offered classes to how to use their mobile phones. They aren't (though I think at some point Orange in the UK offered its customers lessons to make the most of features on their phone). What does the lack of structured mobile phone classes say about how people learn to use their phone? Whilst designers strive for simple and intuitive designs offering formal classes isn't inherently a bad thing: it can help align the user's mental model with that of the system; introduce local users to one another to build up a support network if things go wrong; and ultimately put people at more at ease with the technology. How does this apply to you? - we are all only one generation away from being mystified by the next ubitquitous, useful, but ultimately sub-optimal for humans technology.
And the photos? From ad-hoc street research in South Delhi last year - in an effort to figure out what kinds of and what levels of literacy were required to run a paper recycling station.
Location:Switzerland » Lausanne
Switzerland
Japan » Tokyo
LIFT Presentation Download
Feb 09, 2007
The slides to today's LIFT presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design can be found here [6MB PowerPoint] with a related essay here. The presentation was long on highlighting issued raised by the design research and short on showing solutions that have been proven to work beyond what is currently possible with well designed simple mobile phones. I can understand this probably disappointed a number of the audience, but ask yourself why. I'm not yet convinced that the obvious solutions - spoken menus and more comprehensive use of icons particularly work and the complexity and subtlety of the design solutions don't translate well to this presentation format in the time available.
A summary? Illiterate consumers are in many ways lead users for the rest of us.
The MotoFone mentioned in the question and answer session can be found here, and related Nokia products here and here. Related research can be downloaded from here.
And the photos? The first two were used in the presentation - field research in Delhi from 2006, snow falling on Helsinki from earlier this year and a presenter on the podium from an earlier session.
Location:Switzerland » Geneva
Switzerland
Literacy, Communication & Design, Cairo
Oct 10, 2006
Sunday's presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design at the American University of Cairo can be downloaded from here [6MB] - it's essentially the same presentation as last month in Helsinki. Thanks to Martina Rieker of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences for hosting.
Egypt has 14 million illiterates, 10 million of whom are women. Hmm, how might higher and equal levels of literacy affect gender roles in society?
What if anything does this have to do with an empty Iraqi Air office in downtown?
Location:Egypt » Cairo
Egypt
Literacy, Communication, Design II
Sep 21, 2006
The Motofone is being marketed as a device that amongst other things aspires to "help bridge literacy gaps" including voice prompts to "guide the user quickly and easily through menu navigation, messaging and other functions". It's good to see illiteracy raised to the point where it becomes a marketing feature but I'm also highly aware of the non-trivial challenges that need to be overcome if they are to genuinely meet their stated aims. I've only seen the marketing blurb so I'll make an educated guess to how the feature will be implemented.
If someone can't read or write they'll understand audio prompts right? Well, not quite. Using audio prompts to read out what appears on the screen is unlikely to be the solution because it assumes a general level of technical competency - that what is read out can be comprehended by the listener. To someone without prior experience of using a mobile phone or computer what is a 'folder'? Or 'inbox'? Or 'operator settings'?
Audio prompts also assume that the phone supports the user's native language. India, for example has over 14 different official languages, and over 100's of local dialects. (It's also home to 270 million of the world's 799 million illiterate peoples so its a good case study). How many languages are supported and how do these reflect the illiterate population?
As I argued at last week's UIAH presentation, probably the biggest factor counting against the widespread adoption of this feature is one of proximate literacy - quite simply that its often easier ask someone for assistance than learn oneself. In our research we concluded that most (illiterate) mobile phone users can turn on a phone, answer an incoming call and make local calls (pre-fixes for non-local calls start to present a problem and the complexity of tasks extrapolates from there). For many people the primary motivation for owning a phone is personal and convenient communication - their motivation to spend time to work their way through and learn the meaning behind the voice prompts is likely to be fairly low if these motivations are already met. If you're a frequent visitor to Future Perfect you probably get a kick from exploring what phones are capable of, but the rest of the planet is more interested in trivial stuff like relationships and survival. The ability to answer an incoming phone call is pretty powerful in itself and we've interviewed (generally older) users whose primary goals were met by mastering this feature.
Ever tried to make your way through voice prompts when you were in a hurry? It's fun right? Now apply the same level of enthusiasm to a hurried illiterate phone user from Kolkatta, Kohima or Kharagpur. But what if you're not in a hurry? When your options are to attempt to navigate and learn the meaning of audio prompts or wait until a literate, device competent and/or friendly person is nearby then rote learn a solution which will you choose?
Closer to launch time it will be interesting to see to what extent and how these aspirant-literacy-gap-bridging features are publicized and to whom. Will the Motofone succeed as a product? Probably. Will it meet its aim to bridge literacy gaps? What do you think?
Location:Finland
United States » Los Angeles
Japan » Tokyo
United States
Literacy, Communication, Design Presentation
Sep 20, 2006
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The slides from last week's UIAH presentation on designing for illterate users can now be downloaded from here [6MB]. The presentation draws a lot of its material from this essay on research into illiterate communication practices that weve been doing.
A synopsis? Don't frame the question by 'designing for illiterate people', think about the skills that are necessary to use the core features on a device - something which we term device competency. Consider the different types of literacy that users do have. To what extent do risks & consequences affect device exploration? Why iconic support and voice prompts can be part of a solution but are far from being the solution - instead look to a range of solutions on the device, on the network, and in user's ecosytem. The eco-system can be anything from (task or device) literacy classes to posters on walls. Last but certainly not least that it is better to solve the problem (illiteracy), than design work-around solutions for dealing with the problem (illiterate users stumped by text driven device interfaces).
Why should you be interested designing for illterate people? For selfish reasons of course - illiterate people make excellent lead users - solutions that meets their needs may well point the way to ease of use for the rest of us. I'm sure you can think of other reasons too.
The download is a somewhat condensed version of the original presentation. One slide I removed plays the devil's advocate - that textual literacy is itself a work-around for other forms of communication. At what point does human kind evolve to the point where literacy as we know it becomes redundant? A topic for another day perhaps.
Thank-you to Teemu Leinonen and Andrea Botero Cabrera for hosting the session, Media Lab students for posing questions worth answering and a lively discussion and of course to the extensive team of colleagues who made it all happen (slide 2 of the presentation since you ask).
Related illteracy research here, related presentations here. To be sent notification of new Future Perfect publications, presentations and presentation downloads send an email to info @ janchipchase dot com with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Location:India » Delhi
Finland
Finland » Helsinki
India
Japan » Tokyo
The Very Definition of Local
Aug 28, 2006
When personal communication devices were less common arriving visitors to Nagano's Kouri Station would hunt down the nearest phone booth and could rote dial a taxi. The sign provided all the necessary information - since call to a local number were made from a local device. Mobility changes what we consider to be local - and in this instance for a mobile phone to connect to this number requires knowledge of the local prefix.
Incidentally, the addtional complexity and rules for dialling non-local numbers can be a barrier for low-literacy mobile phone users.
Location:Japan
Japan » Nagano
Communication, Literacy, Design
Aug 25, 2006
Remote communication requires a means of identifying whom to contact. How do people who can't read and write manage their contact information?
This is just one of the many questions I'll be asking at a presentation on Literacy, Communication, Design to the University of Art and Design Helsinki on the evening of the 14th September. It's hosted by Teemu Leinonen and Andrea Botero Cabrera and is open to the public. It will draw on three years of research by colleagues at the Nokia Mobile HCI Group into low literacy communication practices, a journey that took us from urban and rural India to Nepal, China, Uganda and beyond.
Related research can be found here and as usual when its all done and dusted links to the slides will be posted to here.
China
India » Delhi » Connaught Place
India » Delhi
China » Hangzhou
India
China » Ji Lin
Uganda » Kampala
Nepal » Kathmandu
Uganda » Kyotera
Uganda » Lwamagwa
Nepal
India » Delhi » New Delhi
India » Delhi » Old Delhi
Nepal » Pokara
India » Delhi » South Delhi
Japan » Tokyo
Uganda
India » Delhi » outskirts of
Literacy & Understanding
May 22, 2006
China
China » Hukeng
China » Xiamen
Non-Literate Mobile Phone Communication
Nov 20, 2005
To communicate with someone outside your immediate proximity requires at least 4 things: something to communicate; tools to create what you want to communicate; an infrastructure to carry the communication; and a means of identifying with whom to communicate. There are an estimated 799 million non-literate peoples world wide. If you can't read and write how do you manage your contacts?
This simple observation was the starting point to conduct a series of (ongoing) exploratory research studies in India, China and Nepal - our aim to understand the communication needs of non-literate users. For mobile phone manufacturers who wish to address these needs: How does the inability to read and write affect the ability of mobile phone users to make effective use of mobile phones? Making and receiving calls? Creating and managing contact information? Text messaging? Using time management features? How can we design communication tools that draw on the knowledge and experiences that these users do have?
If your interest is piqued then you might enjoy the following essay entitled Understanding Non-Literacy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone Communication which explores these issues and proposes a number of possible design solutions. As with a lot of our work the original projects included a fair amount of concept development that is only touched on in this essay.
In the studies we spent time with non-literate users exploring, mapping and understanding the things they used and the tasks they wanted to achieve - from using washing machines to weighing scales to running motorbikes to re-tuning TVs to paying for things. How did they interact with objects with textual and numeric interfaces? What problems did they encounter? What strategies did they adopt to overcome these problems? Were these strategies successful? If not, why not? And how can we bring the knowledge from this research and apply it to create communication devices that are more in tune with our non-literate users?
Researching non-literate communication practices has been rewarding: it touches on a very basic human desire - to communicate across time and space; the potential payback for the research is obvious and non-trivial; and the study participants, collaboration partners and environments in which the research took place have been quite simply inspiring.
Photos taken from street research in Mumbia, Bangalore, 2004 & 2005.
Location:India » Ahmedabad
India » Bangalore
China » Beijing
China
China » Hangzhou
India
China » Ji Lin
Nepal » Kathmandu
India » Mumbai
Nepal
Nepal » Pokara
China » Shanghai
Japan » Tokyo