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Rethinking Design of Digital Platforms for Emergent Users: Findings from a Study with Rural Indian Farmers

Published: 27 December 2020 Publication History

Abstract

With increasing penetration of low cost smartphones and affordable data plans in developing countries like India, there is a definite potential that the benefits of access to information can reach a wider audience. However, researchers have also been cognizant that many from this segment are first time users of digital technology and are limited by low text-literacy and low capability to handle and use digital platforms. The established norms of application building for a more tech-savvy and text-literate audience might need to be revisited. We conduct detailed interviews in an ecologically valid setting with 20 farmers from rural Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh to understand the information seeking behaviour and culture of digital platform usage among these populations. Through these interviews we are able to distill some very salient characteristics of the new Internet users and draw a broad set of guidelines for designing information systems for these users. We find the constructs of trust, external invisibility, peers and family play a very important role in the uptake of digital platforms in addition to the accessibility features of text-free design.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
IndiaHCI '20: Proceedings of the 11th Indian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
November 2020
129 pages
ISBN:9781450389440
DOI:10.1145/3429290
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Published: 27 December 2020

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Author Tags

  1. Digital Platform Design
  2. Emergent Users
  3. Information Seeking Behaviour
  4. Information Sources
  5. New Internet Users
  6. Next Billion Users

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Overall Acceptance Rate 33 of 93 submissions, 35%

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  • (2024)A Set of Professional Tools to Support the Design and Evaluation of Real-Time Payment Systems and Emergent UsersJournal on Interactive Systems10.5753/jis.2024.420715:1(790-809)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Opportunities and Challenges for Designing Interactive Applications for Coffee Producers in the Countryside of BrazilProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3702038.3702074(1-14)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Challenges and Opportunities Designing Voice User Interfaces for Emergent UsersHuman-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-031-60449-2_1(3-16)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Design Considerations for Real-Time Payment Systems and Emerging UsersProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3638067.3638107(1-11)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
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