Introduction
from those that are specifically usability-focused to broader and more
philosophical questions:
• Can mobile-phone interfaces be designed such that even illiterate
users can use them?
• Do new research methodologies need to be devised to work
with subjects who can’t read?
• Who is “the user” when one person asks another to perform
a device task?
• Are there patterns of device usage that are consistent across
developing countries? And, can design recommendations be
tailored to such patterns? Or, is there something special
about Kenya that would suggest that similar services elsewhere
would not necessarily succeed?
• Do designers carry an ethical burden in such circumstances,
of ensuring just use of the technology?
These are the kinds of questions asked by a growing field called “information
and technology for development,” or ICT4D. ICT4D considers
how technologies such as the personal computer, mobile phone, and
the Internet can contribute to global socio-economic development of
economically impoverished communities.
Many of the questions of ICT4D are those that people in human–
computer interaction have been asking for decades in other contexts. In
fact, HCI already figures prominently in ICT4D projects, though it is
not always called “HCI.” The Association for Computing Machinery’s
special interest group on computer-human interaction (ACM SIGCHI)
defines human–computer interaction as “a discipline concerned with
the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing
systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding
them” [54, 55]. By this definition, all of the questions enumerated
above could be considered legitimate questions of HCI. In fact, in
their foundational textbook on HCI, Schneiderman and Plaisant wrote,
“As a profession, we will be remembered for how well we meet our users’
needs. That’s the ultimate goal: addressing the needs of all users” [124].
A key tenet of this article, therefore, is that HCI is central to
ICT4D — it was so even before people who called themselves “HCI