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Understanding culturally distant end-users through intermediary-derived personas

Published: 03 October 2011 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper we present the use of a persona creation process for gathering information from intermediaries for information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) projects. Our approach represents a departure from traditional persona use in that it does not organise pre-existing data about potential users, but is itself a data gathering process. We present a case study of our use of the process on an ICT4D project, during which time we observed the combined benefits of using personas and of working with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) intermediary materialise. We attribute these outcomes to our persona creation workshops. Information which the NGO furnished regarding sensitive personal circumstances typical of our end users greatly improved our understanding of our users. This information would likely not have come to light had we interviewed the users ourselves, which we believe demonstrates the validity of relying on intermediary information for persona creation rather than first-hand information.

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Goodwin, K. Designing for the digital age: how to create human-centered products and services. John Wiley & Sons, Indianapolis, IN, 2009.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Finetuning Analytics Information Systems for a Better Understanding of Users: Evidence of Personification Bias on Multiple Digital ChannelsInformation Systems Frontiers10.1007/s10796-023-10395-526:2(775-798)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2024
  • (2017)Codesigning with communities to support rural water management in UgandaCoDesign10.1080/15710882.2017.131090413:2(110-126)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2017
  • (2016)Using Co-Design to Discern and Overcome Barriers to Employment in Cape TownProceedings of the 7th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/3001913.3006641(1-4)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2016
  • Show More Cited By

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
SAICSIT '11: Proceedings of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference on Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership in a Diverse, Multidisciplinary Environment
October 2011
352 pages
ISBN:9781450308786
DOI:10.1145/2072221
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

  • University of Cape Town
  • SAICSIT: So. African Inst. Of Computer Scientists & Info Tecnologists

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 October 2011

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Author Tags

  1. ICT4D
  2. NGOs
  3. cultural distance
  4. design
  5. intermediaries
  6. personas

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  • Research-article

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SAICSIT '11
Sponsor:
  • SAICSIT

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Overall Acceptance Rate 187 of 439 submissions, 43%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Finetuning Analytics Information Systems for a Better Understanding of Users: Evidence of Personification Bias on Multiple Digital ChannelsInformation Systems Frontiers10.1007/s10796-023-10395-526:2(775-798)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2024
  • (2017)Codesigning with communities to support rural water management in UgandaCoDesign10.1080/15710882.2017.131090413:2(110-126)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2017
  • (2016)Using Co-Design to Discern and Overcome Barriers to Employment in Cape TownProceedings of the 7th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/3001913.3006641(1-4)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2016
  • (2016)A Critique of Personas as representations of "the other" in Cross-Cultural Technology DesignProceedings of the First African Conference on Human Computer Interaction10.1145/2998581.2998595(149-154)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2016
  • (2016)Supporting community needs for rural water management through community-based co-designProceedings of the 14th Participatory Design Conference: Full papers - Volume 110.1145/2940299.2940311(91-100)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2016
  • (2015)Communicating User ExperienceInternational Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development10.4018/IJSKD.20150401027:2(14-26)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2015
  • (2014)Cooking personasInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2013.10.00272:2(255-274)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2014

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