How to Design for the Emergent (or, the Next Billion) Users?
Let’s meet and discuss in Hyderabad later this year (in Nov 2019).
Kishan has come to the big city only three months ago. Studied upto class 8th, he works a a security guard. He is learning about the new ways. For example, he travels by metro. He uses an ATM card. He downloads songs on his mobile phone in his own language.
People like Kishan are Emergent Users. They have started using technologies, especially digital ones, like any other. Increasing exposure and decreasing costs are helping that. However, the path is not smooth. The emergent user still faces barriers. Low-literacy is one of them. How would a user who is educated till class 8th learn to type a message? How a user who never had an ATM card, suddenly forced by his employers, learn to use one?
The second contributor to the problem is that the interfaces of computers are not designed by keeping the emergent user in focus. They are designed for the urban educated who is also well exposed to these technologies. That means, they can comprehend the words, refer to manuals and have mental models to deal with new applications. What about the Emergent users? They cannot read or refer to manuals. They are also not widely exposed to different technologies. Therefore, unknowingly, the interfaces raise barriers against usage.
How to Design for the Emergent Users?
- Would bringing the experts together to talk about how to design for the emergent users?
- Or, we could go to these users, and illustrate the future scenarios with them?
- Or, should we educate the young generation, the decision makers of tomorrow for helping the emergent users?
IndiaHCI
India HCI is an attempt to do that. India HCI is the Indian conference of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). HCI is a wide and multidisciplinary field that focuses on the interface of humans and computers. The humans are understood to be in a wider sense that includes not only the physical but also the social, cultural, economic and political dimensions. Computers include all types of digital artefacts that work on a large number of devices-PC, mobile phones, ATM, kiosks etc. IndiaHCI, in particular, looks at the problems specific to India where the contexts are different and more complex than those of the developed nations.
Over the last decade, IndiaHCI has focused on many areas. It has been able to invite and publish high-quality research papers that discussed HCI in the Indian context. Examples include
1. Why WhatsApp became the preferred messaging application in India?
2. How low-income families use voice-user interfaces?
3. Gender and HCI: who technologies are designed for and in what ways?
The conference has also been able to invite renowned scholars from around the world. This is augmented by workshops on methods, which are of a wide variety, used in HCI. In addition, there have been a showcase of research from the industry as well as student’s work.
IndiaHCI 2019 is the tenth conference in the series. It will be held in Hyderabad from 1–3, November 2019. The theme of this year is ‘Agents and Agency: HCI in the age of Machine Intelligence’. It is driven by the fact, as we have earlier mentioned, that AI is too useful to be not talked about. However, agency to manipulate the technology which is a long-recognized topic under HCI needs a revisit. Therefore this year’s conference will focus and examine the interplay of human and machine agency in an increasingly complex world resulting from AI.
To know more, write at:
outreach@indiahci.org
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