research-article

Tangaza: frugal group messaging through speech and text

Authors:

Mokeira Masita-Mwangi,

Pauline Githinji,

Jonathan LedlieAuthors Info & Claims

ACM DEV '10: Proceedings of the First ACM Symposium on Computing for Development

Article No.: 1, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/1926180.1926182

Published: 17 December 2010 Publication History

Abstract

We describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of Tangaza, a mobile phone-based group messaging system targeted at moderately low-income users in developing regions. We focus on the design decisions that make Tangaza inexpensive and usable with even the most basic GSM mobile phone, and examine the resulting usability trade-offs. We also describe how we worked with a subset of our target population to gather design feedback that we were able to immediately build into our prototype implementation. We provide quantitative and qualitative analysis of a three month trial covering one hundred people, drawn from two distinct user populations, with a particular focus on the relationship between the in-person physical social groups that users already had and the virtual groups they formed using Tan-gaza.

References

[1]

Asterisk: The Open Source PBX and Telephony Platform. http://asterisk.org.

[2]

Bubble Talk. http://bubblemotion.com.

[3]

S. Daniel, J. Ellis, and T. Truscott. USENET: A General Access UNIX Network. Duke University, 1980.

[4]

A. Dearden and H. Rizvi. Participatory IT Design and Participatory Development: a Comparative Review. In Proc. of Participatory Design Conference, Oct. 2008.

Digital Library

[5]

C. Delogu, A. D. Carlo, P. Rotundi, and D. Sartori. Usability Evaluation of IVR Systems with DTMF and ASR. In Proc. of Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP), Nov. 1998.

[6]

Django: High-level Python Web Application framework. http://www.djangoproject.com.

[7]

J. Donner. The Rules of Beeping: Exchanging Messages Via Intentional "Missed Calls" on Mobile Phones. Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 2007.

[8]

K. Heimerl, R. Honicky, E. Brewer, and T. Parikh. Message Phone: A User Study and Analysis of Asynchronous Messaging in Rural Uganda. In Proc. of Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR), Oct. 2009.

[9]

R. Jensen. The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 2007.

[10]

Kannel: Open Source for WAP and SMS Gateway. http://kannel.org.

[11]

Kazi560: Kenya's Biggest Job Alerts Service. http://www.kazi560.co.ke.

[12]

I. Medhi, S. N. N. Gautama, and K. Toyama. A Comparison of Mobile Money-transfer UIs for Non-literate and Semi-literate Users. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2009.

Digital Library

[13]

D. R. Millen. Rapid Ethnography: Time Deepening Strategies for HCI Field Research. In Proc. of Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), Aug. 2000.

Digital Library

[14]

N. Patel, D. Chittamuru, A. Jain, P. Dave, and T. S. Parikh. Avaaj Otalo: a Field Study of an Interactive Voice Forum for Small Farmers in Rural India. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2010.

Digital Library

[15]

N. Patel et al. A Comparative Study of Speech and Dialed Input Voice Interfaces in Rural India. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2009.

Digital Library

[16]

M. Plauche et al. Speech Interfaces for Equitable Access to Information Technology. Information Technology and International Development, 4(1), 2007.

Digital Library

[17]

Pyramid Research. Communications Markets in Kenya, 2009.

[18]

N. Sambasivan, E. Cutrell, K. Toyama, and B. A. Nardi. Intermediated Technology Use in Developing Communities. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2010.

Digital Library

[19]

Y. Schwartzman and T. S. Parikh. Establishing Relationships for Designing Rural Information Systems. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2007.

Digital Library

[20]

Semeni. http://semeni.co.ke.

[21]

J. Sherwani, N. Ali, S. Mirza, A. Fatma, Y. Memon, M. Karim, R. Tongia, and R. Rosenfeld. HealthLine: Speech-based Access to Health Information by Low-literate Users. In Proc. of Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD), Dec. 2007.

[22]

Twitter. http://twitter.com.

[23]

Ushahidi: Open Source Platform to Crowdsource Crisis Information. http://www.ushahidi.com.

[24]

F. Weber, K. Bali, R. Rosenfeld, and K. Toyama. Unexplored Directions in Spoken Language Technology for Development. In Proc. of Spoken Language Technology Workshop, Goa, India, Dec. 2008.

[25]

Wikipedia. wikipedia.org.

[26]

S. Wyche, T. N. Smyth, M. Chetty, P. M. Aoki, and R. E. Grinter. Deliberate Interactions: Characterizing Technology Use in Nairobi, Kenya. In Proc. of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Apr. 2010.

Digital Library

Cited By

Perrier THarrington ERonen KMatemo DKinuthia JJohn-Stewart GAnderson RUnger JZegura E(2018)Male Partner Engagement in Family Planning SMS Conversations at Kenyan Health ClinicsProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3209811.3209857(1-11)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209811.3209857
Sambasivan NAzad GAoki PMitra SToyama K(2016)"We call it Hi-Fi"Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/2909609.2909651(1-11)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2909609.2909651
Mudliar PDonner J(2015)Experiencing interactive voice response (IVR) as a participatory medium: The case of CGNet Swara in IndiaMobile Media & Communication10.1177/20501579155715913:3(366-382)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157915571591
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Tangaza: frugal group messaging through speech and text

Recommendations

On user behaviour adaptation under interface change
IUI '14: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Intelligent User Interfaces

Different interfaces allow a user to achieve the same end goal through different action sequences, e.g., command lines vs. drop down menus. Interface efficiency can be described in terms of a cost incurred, e.g., time taken, by the user in typical ...
The University of Alberta user interface management system

In this paper the design and implementation of the University of Alberta user interface management system (UIMS) is discussed. This UIMS is based on the Seeheim model of user interfaces, which divides the user interface into three separate components. ...
The University of Alberta user interface management system
SIGGRAPH '85: Proceedings of the 12th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques

In this paper the design and implementation of the University of Alberta user interface management system (UIMS) is discussed. This UIMS is based on the Seeheim model of user interfaces, which divides the user interface into three separate components. ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

ACM DEV '10: Proceedings of the First ACM Symposium on Computing for Development

December 2010

228 pages

ISBN:9781450304733

DOI:10.1145/1926180

General Chair:
Andrew Dearden
Sheffield Hallam University
,
Program Chairs:
Tapan Parikh
UC Berkeley
,
Lakshminarayanan Subramanian
NYU

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

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]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 17 December 2010

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ACM DEV '10

ACM DEV '10: First ACM Annual Symposium on Computing for Development

December 17 - 18, 2010

London, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 52 of 164 submissions, 32%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

7
Total Citations
View Citations
188
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)6
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 26 Sep 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Perrier THarrington ERonen KMatemo DKinuthia JJohn-Stewart GAnderson RUnger JZegura E(2018)Male Partner Engagement in Family Planning SMS Conversations at Kenyan Health ClinicsProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3209811.3209857(1-11)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209811.3209857
Sambasivan NAzad GAoki PMitra SToyama K(2016)"We call it Hi-Fi"Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/2909609.2909651(1-11)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2909609.2909651
Mudliar PDonner J(2015)Experiencing interactive voice response (IVR) as a participatory medium: The case of CGNet Swara in IndiaMobile Media & Communication10.1177/20501579155715913:3(366-382)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157915571591
Perrier TDeRenzi BAnderson RSathiaseelan AZennaro MBelding EChen J(2015)USSDProceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2830629.2830645(13-21)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2830629.2830645
Ramkrishnan PVashistha ACutrell EThies WThies BNanavati A(2013)DocTalkProceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2442882.2442928(1-2)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2442882.2442928
Chakraborty DMedhi ICutrell EThies WThies BNanavati A(2013)Man versus machineProceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2442882.2442891(1-9)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2442882.2442891
Mudliar PDonner JThies WBest MZegura EDonner JGrinter BMarsden G(2012)Emergent practices around CGNet Swara, voice forum for citizen journalism in rural IndiaProceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/2160673.2160695(159-168)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2160673.2160695

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents