MobileHCI 2016 - Technology Literacy in Poor Infrastructure Environments: Characterizing Wayfinding Strategies in Lebanon

Technology Literacy in Poor Infrastructure Environments Characterizing Wayfinding Strategies in Lebanon

Abdallah El Ali Khaled Bachour Wilko Heuten Susanne Boll

MobileHCI 2016, 7th Sept - Florence, Italy

GlobalWebIndex 2013

Most globally used app in 2013

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195 countries(2016 United Nations estimate)

4CC BY-SA 4.0

154 are still considered developing

CC BY-SA 4.0

Such mobile navigation & mapping technology has not specifically been designed for those 154 countries, making up 79% for our world countries

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Human Computer Interaction for Development

(HCI4D)?

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• Qualitative exploratory fieldwork for technology practices in infrastructure-poor settings ( Ahmed et al., 2015; Wyche, 2015; Jensen et al., 2012)

• Introducing new tools in such communities (Medhi-Thies, 2015)

• Quantitatively assessing knowledge sharing in location-based social Q&A (Park et al., 2014)

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What about so-called ‘independent users’?

jeshoots.com

jeshoots.com

(Oreglia et al., 2011)

• typically younger people

• can use mobile phones and/or computers without constant help from outsiders

• can learn new tasks and functions by themselves or from peers

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What about so-called ‘independent users’?

jeshoots.com

Little research has paid attention to how technology literate individuals that live in a poor infrastructure environment use technology aids in general, and digital navigation aids in particular

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~ 5.8 M population~ 1 M Syrian refugees10,452 km2 ~ 87% live in cities~ 75% use internet

13israelmatzav.blogspot.com

1975-1990 Civil War

14http://speak2all.wordpress.com

Daily Electricity Cuts

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Poor Infrastructure

executive-magazine.com

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Poor Traffic Control

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Poor Visibilityplutino.net

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Multi-lingual

Nikki Villagomez

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‘Service’ / سرفيس

2famous.TV

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• Geomapping Lebanon is not hard

• Crowdsourced mapping efforts are low

• People do not rely on mapping services

• People distrust mapping services

• People often rely on people

Observations

J.Hassoun

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What kinds of navigation and addressing problems are currently faced in Lebanon?

What strategies do technology literate individuals living there employ to overcome them?

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2.

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Information access and navigation strategies for finding unfamiliar POIs

Flickr: zoghal

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Strategies for giving directions to an address

Source: leong

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Characterization

WeAreJuxt

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Survey

6 themes

Interviews

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Part 1: Interviews

Flickr: Iwan Gabovitch

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P129 yrsSoftware Developer26 yrs LB

P233 yrsGraphic Designer12 yrs LB

P333 yrsAssist. Prof.8 yrs LB

P622 yrsGraduate Student21 yrs LB

P827 yrsWeb Designer27 yrs LB

P925 yrsMedia Editor25 yrs LB

P1222 yrsExercise Instructor22 yrs LB

P420 yrsUndergrad Student1 yr LB

P522 yrsWriter / Musician21 yrs LB

P735 yrsHR Director34 yrs LB

P1018 yrsArchitect

18 yrs LB

P1122 yrsTeacher

22 yrs LB

Part 1: 12 participants

CC license: Madebyoliver

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1. Finding an unfamiliar POI

• before trip: information needs for finding where an unfamiliar POI is

• during trip: information search strategies

Part 1: Scenarios

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2. Giving route directions

• give directions to their house • previous difficulties (if any) • route directions they expect

Part 1: Scenarios

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Part 2: Survey

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• Homogenous sampling (forums, print outs, social networks)

• Required: a) Live in Lebanon b) Used mapping services (Google Maps) c) Used messaging (WhatsApp)

• 3 x 50$ e-gift cards

Part 2: Procedure

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56 29

85 total

>1 yr in Lebanon 17-74 years old (M = 27) 91% Lebanese

Part 2: Respondents

CC license: Madebyoliver

64% use maps once a week and messaging apps daily

67% own car or motorcycle 54% walk 40% take a ‘service’

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1. Multi-faceted Information Access Strategies

Wikipedia: Tony Webster

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Search in digital maps (e.g., Google, Bing, Apple) 68%

Before the Trip

38% Web search query (e.g., Google)

39% Go to website of the place

40% Call a friend or family member

44% Find out if there are popular landmarks nearby

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I’d start by asking my friends, and then I’d google map it. [if not on google maps?] Then I’d google its name and check online if there’s an indication of what the address is.

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Use digital maps (Google / Bing / Apple Maps) 66%

During the Trip

21% Make use of street signs

40% Get in taxi / service and rely on driver to know address

65% Get to general area and ask people there

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I would ask the people around me on the street. I keep asking until I find out, someone must know.

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2. Technological Reliability

thenextweb.com

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Outdated information on the map54%

Problems with Digital Maps

66% Incorrect position marker on map

53% Incorrect / missing places on map

39% Incorrect route plan

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Maps [Google Maps] are not very well populated with information, and then it turns into basic map reading, and not just on the go.

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When asked whether they experienced problems when using mapping services before, respondent responses were divided (Md = 4, IQR = 3-5)

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Respondents' reported experienced difficulties with mapping services and whether they used mapping services once a week or several times a week was significant (p < 0.01, FET13)

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3. Multi-faceted Direction Giving Strategies theredlist.com

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Pin [Google Maps] accompanied by general description. So you get to the general area, pin will get you there. There will be a blue building, and right behind it is a blue dumpster, and if you see, you can actually pass through there. So yes, I feel it’s a combination of pin plus directions, that’s the way to go in this country…

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When this happened, I made a drawing. Exactly because it’s easier to know the main roads, and direction of the streets…

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48facebook.com

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When asked whether they previously experienced problems when giving directions to their home to a person that has not visited before, respondent responses were again divided (Md = 4, IQR = 3-5)

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No significant effect between living in a well known area and faced difficulties when giving directions (𝒳² = 4.75, p = 0.09)

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No real difficulties, got used to it

You get used to it

For someone new to the country, I think it is very very difficult to adapt to our system. But I’ve got the hang of it

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مامر

مفرا

مفراءزاروبيشارع

rue

ruelle

route

alleywayroad

street

4. Language Ambiguity, Conventions, and Technology

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Street labels on map do not correspond to how people talk about them

27%

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There is confusion. For example my street, my old street near Barbar [restaurant], they changed the name at one point, but no one knows, so they refer to it as Leon, sometimes Emile Eddie, others something different. So uhh, it’s referred to mostly as Leon, but that’s not what’s put on the sign. Because they changed it and they don’t amend the system…

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5. Tech Literacy & Expectations

Wikipedia: RudolfSimon

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Yes, some people don’t know how to use Google Maps or the WhatsApp thing, so I would have to tell them by mouth, by words, and sometimes they don’t get it, so I’d have to go get them from there [the place they are currently at].

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6. Urban-rural Divides

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Then this wouldn’t work obviously, you’d have to go stand there. You would have to give a street name, a written address kind of thing.

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Cultural and environmental assimilation

vs.

Range of strategies to overcome such wayfinding

difficulties

Role of Culture?

milinme.wordpress.com

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Wayfinding Problems - Unique?

* Language & Cultural Issues

M.C. Escher

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Social Querying + Tech Aids

Wikipedia: The National Archives

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Landmark-based Navigation

Wikipedia: A.K.Khalifeh

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Local Knowledge

Credit: Richard Hall

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So What?

Conventions are important!

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• Mix social querying with technology aids • Draw more on landmark-based navigation • Utilize local knowledge, especially for

language issues

Full paper: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2935352

Thank youAbdallah El Aliwww.abdoelali.com [email protected] @abdoelali

Take-home

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Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Nusrat Jahan Mim, and Steven J. Jackson. 2015. Residual Mobilities: Infrastructural Displacement and Post-Colonial Computing in Bangladesh. In Proc. CHI ’15. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 437–446.

GlobalWebIndex. 2013. (2013). http://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/ top- global- smartphone- apps

Kasper L. Jensen, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, and Kasper Rodil. 2012. Tapping into Local Lore: Toward Scalable Local Mapping and Tagging for Rural Africa Using Mobile Devices. In Proc. NordiCHI ’12. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 631–634.

Indrani Medhi-Thies, Pedro Ferreira, Nakull Gupta, Jacki O’Neill, and Edward Cutrell. 2015. KrishiPustak: A Social Networking System for Low-Literate Farmers. In Proc. CSCW ’15. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1670–1681.

Sangkeun Park, Yongsung Kim, Uichin Lee, and Mark Ackerman. 2014. Understanding Localness of Knowledge Sharing: A Study of Naver KiN ’Here’. In Proc. MobileHCI ’14. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13–22.

Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon

Susan Wyche. 2015. Exploring Mobile Phone and Social Media Use in a Nairobi Slum: A Case for Alternative Approaches to Design in ICTD. In Proc. ICTD ’15. ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 12, 8 pages.

References