590 UC Presentation – February 4 th, 2003 Extreme UbiComp: Is UbiComp Relevant for the Rural Hinterlands of the Developing World? Tapan S. Parikh [email protected].

590 UC Presentation – February 4th, 2003

Extreme UbiComp: Is UbiComp Relevant for the Rural Hinterlands of the Developing World?

Tapan S. Parikh

[email protected]

Technical Problems for Rural Computing in India

Inconsistent Power

Inconsistent / Non-existent Connectivity

Low-Cost Devices

Appropriate Applications and Content

Value-centered Design

Localization - Local Language Support

Accessibility to Illiterate / Semi-literate Users

Technical Problems for Rural Computing in India

Inconsistent Power

Inconsistent / Non-existent Connectivity

Low-Cost Devices

Appropriate Applications and Content

Value-centered Design

Localization - Local Language Support

Accessibility to Illiterate / Semi-literate Users

At least the first five (if not all) are equally relevant for Ubiquitous Computing

Low-Cost Devices: Simputer

SIMPle compUTER (Simple, In-expensive Multi-lingual Peoples compUTER)

SGPL: Open Source Hardware License (has proved difficult in practice)

Low-Cost (also very difficult in practice, currently approx $200)

Accessible (TTS, working on Speech Recognition)

Multi-Lingual

Sturdy and Robust

Other Applications / Devices: VoIP

Connectivity Options in Rural India

WLL –Wireless in Local Loop (CDMA Radio) – • Approx 56 kbps shared amongst Local Village WAN / LAN• 25-40 km Radius

802.11 Wireless “Corridors”• Media Lab Asia and Govt. Ministry for ICT are implementing such a corridor between Kanpur and Lucknow• Spectrum recently opened by Telecom Regulatory Agencies

Satellite / VSAT

Cable / DSL – Reaching Tier I and II towns

Fiber-Optic Backbone – Being implemented by Reliance Infocom

Dial-up – Painfully slow due to bad copper wire, outdated exchanges, overloaded hubs, and fly-by-night ISPs

Accessibility: A Village Micro-Finance Application

Micro-finance means providing small credit and savings facilities for local communities who cannot access formal financial services

In India the most common form of micro-finance occurs through the actions of Self-Help-Groups (SHGS), which are small-village based groups that communally save and lend and operate on the basis of mutual liability

NGO

Federation

Cluster

Groups

Cluster

Rural BankOr External Funding Agency

Large Number of Transactions, each of small amount

Large cumulative money flows

Documentation and Reporting is manually very cumbersome

Non-literate and Semi-literate user domain

Joint work with Media Lab Asia and Govt. of India Ministry for ICT - to appear at SIGCHI 2003

Research Objectives and Design Process

Explore the interface design space for semi-literate, illiterate and uneducated users

Explore and leverage different kinds of literacy (numeric, symbolic, partial) to design appropriate interfaces

Explore the potential of software applications in aiding local economic development and financial management

Design Process: Contextual Study, Cognitive Literacy Tests, Participatory Design, Iterative Rapid Prototyping

Combination of Inductive and Deductive Processes

Timeframe April – December 2002

Design Observations

Icon Families – Creating of icon families to represent common screen elements

Iconic Legend – Creating associations between auditory and iconic representations to quickly assimilate icon families

Numeric Values can be used by numerically-literate to orient with rest of application

Importance of Physical Metaphors – tabular data formats carried over from existing notebooks and ledgers greatly reduced learning curve and user apprehension

Representational, Iconic forms superior to more abstract Symbolic Representations

Conclusion: Real is Real

These users have spent a lifetime working and living in very real physical spaces

We want to ensure a smooth, holistic transition to the digital world

Answer: Make the interface as real and physical as possible. Requisite buzzwords: tangible / graspable interfaces; augmented reality

Don’t we want this in ubicomp also – to allow the user to remain in real, physical cognitive spaces as much as possible?

Design Vision: Hybrid Paper / Digital Data Entry Device

Using many similar technologies to Ubicomp

More soon (hopefully)…

Final Thoughts: Ubicomp and “Extreme Ubicomp”

If Ubicomp works in India, then...

Most extreme physical conditions - Little to no infrastructure

Low purchasing power - each device has to prove bang for the buck

Completely technology-naive users - if they can understand and utilize the technology, anyone should be able to

Importance of real, direct, physical interaction versus unnecessary abstract higher order reasoning

Final Thoughts: Ubicomp and “Extreme Ubicomp”

If Ubicomp works in India, then...

Most extreme physical conditions - Little to no infrastructure

Low purchasing power - each device has to prove bang for the buck

Completely technology-naive users - if they can understand and utilize the technology, anyone should be able to

Importance of real, direct, physical interaction versus unnecessary and abstract higher order reasoning

…it can truly be called scalable to "ubiquitous"

Perfect laboratory environment for Ubicomp and HCI Research