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research-article

Intermediated technology use in developing communities

Authors:

Nithya Sambasivan,

Kentaro Toyama,

Bonnie NardiAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 2583 - 2592

https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753718

Published: 10 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

We describe a prevalent mode of information access in low-income communities of the developing world--intermediated interactions. They enable persons for whom technology is inaccessible due to non-literacy, lack of technology-operation skills, or financial constraints, to benefit from technologies through digitally skilled users--thus, expanding the reach of technologies. Reporting the results of our ethnography in two urban slums of Bangalore, India, we present three distinct intermediated interactions: inputting intent into the device in proximate enabling, interpretation of device output in proximate translation, and both input of intent and interpretation of output in surrogate usage. We present some requirements and challenges in interface design of these interactions and explain how they are different from direct interactions. We then explain the broader effects of these interactions on low-income communities, and present some implications for design.

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Index Terms

Intermediated technology use in developing communities
1. Information systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2010

2690 pages

ISBN:9781605589299

DOI:10.1145/1753326

General Chair:
Elizabeth Mynatt
Georgia Institute of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
Vienna University of Technology
,
Scott Hudson
Carnegie Mellon University
,
Keith Edwards
Georgia Tech
,
Tom Rodden
University of Nottingham

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 10 April 2010

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CHI '10: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 10 - 15, 2010

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721512
Sharma VMehta SKumar NSeth A(2024)Whose Participation Counts? Towards Technology-Mediated Equitable Futures of Development WorkProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869798:CSCW2(1-30)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686979
Mehra ASairam VMittal K(2024)BlendNet: An Assisted Digital Distribution Platform for Underserved PopulationsProceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3674829.3675056(1-17)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674829.3675056
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