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Reflection on research methodologies for ubicomp in developing contexts

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Abstract

As the user base for ubiquitous technology expands to developing regions, the likelihood of disparity between the lived experience of design team members (developers, designers, researchers, etc.) and end users has increased. Human-centered design (HCD) provides a toolkit of research methods aimed at helping bridge the distance between technology design teams and end users. However, we have found that traditional approaches to HCD research methods are difficult to deploy in developing regions. In this paper, we share our experiences of adapting HCD research methodologies to the Central Asia context and some lessons we have learned. While our lessons are many, reconsidering the unit of analysis from the individual to larger social units was an early discovery that provided a frame for later research activities that focused on ubicomp development. We argue that lessons and challenges derived from our experience will generalize to other research investigations in which researchers are trying to adapt common HCD data collection methods to create ubiquitous technologies for and/or with distant audiences in developing regions.

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Notes

  1. The CAICT project also developed prototypes concerned with local transportation, see [11].

  2. The specifics of the design concept itself originated with the ethnographic research which we detail below.

  3. Also known as ‘rapid ethnography’.

  4. Snowball sampling is a participant recruiting technique in which existing participants, (or in this case research assistants), recruit new participants among their acquaintances.

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Acknowledgments

This CAICT material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grants #0326101 and #0219350. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. Additional thanks to our survey respondents, interview participants, and local research assistants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Beth Kolko & Emma Rose

  2. College of Computing and Digital Media, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Cynthia Putnam

  3. Global Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Erica Johnson

Authors
  1. Beth Kolko
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  2. Cynthia Putnam
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  3. Emma Rose
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  4. Erica Johnson
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Correspondence to Beth Kolko.

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Kolko, B., Putnam, C., Rose, E. et al. Reflection on research methodologies for ubicomp in developing contexts. Pers Ubiquit Comput 15, 575–583 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-010-0338-0

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