Text-Free UI for Illiterate Users

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Text-Free UI for Illiterate Users
Microsoft Research India
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Contents

• Background
• The Application
• Target Community
• Design Process
• Design Principles
• Final Prototype
• User Testing Results
• Conclusions and Future work
• New Work

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26 of worlds adult population is illiterate
and 98 of all illiterates live in the
developing countries!
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How to bridge this increasing Digital Divide by
providing access to information to all
Can a user interface be designed such that even
novice, illiterate users require absolutely no
intervention from anyone at all to use?
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Text-Free UI is
PLAY
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Target Community

• Domestic workers (they cook, clean peoples
  houses)
• Informal sector jobs
• Income range is INR 800-2500 (USD 20-50) per
  month
• Most are illiterate and have never seen a PC
  (those who have seen, see in their employers
  homes)

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Design Process

• Ethnographic Interviews
• Subject Trials

Being accepted and trusted
Helping overcome fear of technology
Making subjects feel comfortable
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Design Principles

• Avoid text (but using numbers may be okay)
• Use semi-abstracted graphics, and increase
• photorealism with deeper interaction.
• Pay attention to subtle graphical cues. User
  response
• may depend on psychological, cultural,
  or religious
• biases.
• Provide voice feedback for all functional units.
• Provide help on all screens
• Provide movie dramatizing purpose of application

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Design Principles
Use semi-abstracted graphics, and increase
photorealism with deeper interaction.
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Design Principles
Pay attention to subtle graphical cues. User
response may depend on psychological, cultural,
or religious biases.
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Design Principles
Provide help on all screens
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Design Principles
Employers look for a helper through app
Helper sees that job information on the app
They meet
Make a short movie that plays in a loop at the
beginning, that would dramatize the purpose of
the application, and describe how to use the
application, to overcome lack of awareness of the
possibilities with computer technology.
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Final Prototype

• Text- Free UI for Employment Search
• Text-Free UI for Map Navigation
• Explore Text-Free UIs in general could be
• any application domain

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Demo
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Experimental Set-Up

• Cultural Consideration - Modifications to ensure
  that subjects were comfortable in the environment
  and testing scenario.
• Application- We tested both applications with two
  interfaces (text-based vs. text-free) and used a
  script!
• Subjects- Range of participants varying in age,
  environment they lived and worked and familiarity
  with technology.

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User Testing Results

• Unable to make sense or navigate through the
  text-based UIs
• Immediate comprehension of voice feedback
• Collaborative use seemed more effective
• The help instructions were a constant source of
  reassurance to users.
• Navigation metaphor of a book helped
• Subject involvement among test subjects
• After watching movie all 35 test participants
  could complete the task and took an average of
  7.5 minutes and 5.2 prompts!!! ?

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Conclusions and Future Work

• Design elements could be applicable to other
  user groups that are illiterate and new to
  computer use.
• To enable easiest possible operation for any
  first time user without intervention
• Build strong design principles which could be
  used to convert any text-based UI into a
  text-free UI

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New Work

• Text-Free User Interface for dispensing complex
  health care information for anemia
• What is the best way to represent complex
  information?
• Static Graphic
• Animation
• Video

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The End
http//research.microsoft.com/india
indranim_at_microsoft.com