Abstract
Usability engineering is all about developing usable products and/or services for a certain user group in a specific context. In this paper, we present some ideas about how to enhance usability engineering in rural areas (i.e. for users in rural contexts) taking agile methods into account. First, rural areas, rural users and rural products are illustrated. We elucidate the cultural, technological and social differences and the specifics of rural areas. Then, we look at the most important steps according to the standard user-centered design process defined in ISO 9241-210 in order to identify possible challenges and implications for usability engineering in rural areas. Finally, we analyze how usability engineering profits by using agile methods in this context.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Bidwell, N., Winschiers-Theophilus, H., Koch Kapuire, G., Rehm, M.: Pushing Personhood into Place: Situating Media in the Transfer of Rural Knowledge in Africa. Int. Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69(10), S 618–S 631 (2011b); Special Issue on Locative Media
Bidwell, N.J., et al.: Please call ME. NU 4EVER: Callback & Social Media Sharing in Rural Africa. In: Proceedings of The 10th International Workshop on Internalisation of Products and Systems, Kuching, Malaysia (2011)
Das, R.K., Patra, M.R., Mahapatra, S.C.: e-grama: a tool for bridging the digital divide in rural India. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, pp. 361–366. ACM, Cairo (2008)
Design, I.B.: Low cost self-diagnosis tool for rural India, http://indian-bydesign.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/product-feature-low-cost-self-diagnosis-tool-for-rural-india/ (May 6, 2010)
Bidwell, N.J., Browning, D.: Pursuing genius loci: interaction design and natural places. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 14(1), 15–30 (2010)
Marshini, C., Tucker, W., Blake, E.: Developing locally Relevant Software Application for Rural Areas: South African Example, Proceedings. In: SAICSIT (2004)
Maunder, A., Marsden, G., Tucker, W.: Evaluating the relevance of the ‘Real Access’ criteria as a framework for rural HCI research. In: Proceedings of CHI-SA, 2006, pp. 57–79 (2006)
Sandhu, J.S., Altankhuyag, P., Amarsaikhan, D.: Serial hanging out: rapid ethnographic needs assessment in rural settings. In: Jacko, J.A. (ed.) Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2007, Part I. LNCS, vol. 4550, pp. 614–623. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Zhao, J.: ICT4D: Internet adoption and usage among rural users in China. Knowledge, Technology & Policy 21(1), 9–18 (2008)
Walker, K., et al.: A resource kit for participatory socio-technical design in rural kenya. In: CHI 2008 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2709–2714. ACM, Florence (2008)
Abdelnour-Nocera, J., Dunckley, L.: Sociotechnical research and knowledge communication in community-centred systems design: a technological frames perspective. International Journal of Web Based Communities 4(4), 476–490 (2008)
Sukumaran, A., et al.: Intermediated technology interaction in rural contexts. In: CHI 2009 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3817–3822. ACM, Boston (2009)
Bidwell, N.J., et al.: Designing with mobile digital storytelling in rural Africa. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1593–1602. ACM, Atlanta (2010)
Oreglia, E., Liu, Y., Zhao, W.: Designing for emerging rural users: experiences from China. In: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (2011)
Liu, J., et al.: How socio-economic structure influences rural users’ acceptance of mobile entertainment. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2203–2212. ACM, Atlanta (2010)
Button, G.: Cognition in the Wild, Edwin Hutchins. Comput. Supported Coop. Work 6(4), 391–395 (1997)
Dourish, P., et al.: Security in the wild: user strategies for managing security as an everyday, practical problem. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8(6), 391–401 (2004)
Marshall, P., et al.: Rethinking ‘Multi-user’: An in-the-wild study of how groups approach a walk-up-and-use tabletop interface. In: Conf. Hum. Fact. Comput. Syst. Proc. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, pp. 3033–3042 (2011)
Rogers, Y.: Interaction design gone wild: striving for wild theory. Interactions 18(4), 58–62 (2011)
Jackson, S.J., Pompe, A., Krieshok, G.: Repair worlds: maintenance, repair, and ICT for development in rural Namibia. In: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 107–116. ACM, Seattle (2012)
Abdelnour-Nocera, J., et al.: Re-framing HCI through Local and Indigenous Perspectives. In: Campos, P., Graham, N., Jorge, J., Nunes, N., Palanque, P., Winckler, M. (eds.) INTERACT 2011, Part IV. LNCS, vol. 6949, pp. 738–739. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Winschiers-Theophilus, H., et al.: Being participated: a community approach. In: Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference, pp. 1–10. ACM, Sydney (2010)
Gorman, T., et al.: Adapting usability testing for oral, rural users. In: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1437–1440. ACM, Vancouver (2011)
Reitmaier, T., Bidwell, N.J., Marsden, G.: Situating digital storytelling within African communities. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69(10), 658–668 (2011)
Reitmaier, T., et al.: Communicating in designing an oral repository for rural African villages (2012)
Jensen, K.L., et al.: Putting it in perspective: designing a 3D visualization to contextualize indigenous knowledge in rural Namibia. In: Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, pp. 196–199. ACM, Newcastle Upon Tyne (2012)
DIN, DIN EN ISO 9241-210 Ergonomische Anforderungen der Mensch-System-Interaktion Teil 210: Prozess zur Gestaltung gebrauchstauglicher Systeme. BeuthVerlag, Berlin (2010)
Schoper, Y., Heimgärtner, R.: Lessons from Intercultural Project Management for the Intercultural HCI Design Process. In: Marcus, A. (ed.) DUXU/HCII 2013, Part II. LNCS, vol. 8013, pp. 95–104. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Heimgärtner, R., Solanki, A., Hollerit, B. (2014). Enhancing Usability Engineering in Rural Areas Using Agile Methods. In: Marcus, A. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theories, Methods, and Tools for Designing the User Experience. DUXU 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8517. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07668-3_43
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07668-3_43
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07667-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07668-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)