Human-Computer Interaction for Development: A Brief History

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Human-Computer Interaction for Development: A Brief HistoryMelissa R. Ho, [email protected] of InformationUniversity of California, Berkeley, CA, USAThomas N. Smyth, [email protected] of Interactive Computing, College of ComputingGeorgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, USAMatthew Kam, [email protected] Engineering and Computer SciencesUniversity of California, Berkeley, CA, USAAndrew Dearden, [email protected] & Computing Research CenterSheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom

AbstractRecent years have witnessed the emergence of aninterdisciplinary, international body of research on the designof appropriate information and communication technology (ICT)systems for international development. Even more recently, agroup of researchers has begun an effort to build a communityaround that evolving body of work, termed by some as ‘HCI4D’.This paper represents a first attempt at surveying this nascentcommunity, its history, its members, and the work that definesit. Our review of the short history of HCI4D spans frombeginnings in the early 1990s to the present day. We present awide-ranging literature review, including a survey of high leveltopics and approaches. We then conclude with a reflectivediscussion. This work is intended to serve as both a usefulreference and a seed for further dialogue within the growingHCI4D community. We also direct readers to the community portaland collaborative bibliography found at http://hci4d.org.IntroductionThe case has long been made that information and communicationtechnologies have a role to play in the social, political, andDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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economic development of the world’s developing regions. Indeed,United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8 in partstates: “In cooperation with the private sector, make availablebenefits of new technologies, especially information andcommunications.” Accordingly, a thriving body of research hasgrown up around this union of technology and development.More recently, a geographically diverse and interdisciplinarybody of work has appeared as a subset within this field,specifically focused on the design of interactive information andcommunications technology (ICT) systems in the service ofdevelopment goals. Building on this momentum, something of amovement has been initiated by a group of researchers andpractitioners to build a community around that evolving body ofwork. This community is termed Human-Computer Interaction forDevelopment (HCI4D) by some, and the amount of work within it hasincreased considerably in recent years.However, this nascent community is far from well-established, andis plagued, for instance, by basic issues of definition. Forinstance, what is development? The MDGs cited above offer us apractical, measurable means of looking at development. Yet, itseems too simplistic to boil down our work to simply increasingthe number of telephone lines, cellular subscribers, and Internetusers per 100 population in each country. Amartya Sen arguesthat we should look at development as “freedom” (Sen, 1999), andAnirudh Krishna further emphasizes the importance of socialcapital in giving poor people the freedom to aspire (Krishna,2002). In any case, a hard and fast definition of development isinherently elusive.Additionally, one might ask: what does it mean to be doing HCIresearch “for development”? The ACM definition of human-computerinteraction is a good starting point:

“Human-computer interaction is a discipline concernedwith the design, evaluation and implementation ofinteractive computing systems for human use and withthe study of major phenomena surrounding them.”1

1 http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html#2_1Draft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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But this definition seems quite broad compared to the body ofwork under consideration. It requires closer scrutiny.ICT4D itself, perhaps not surprisingly, also suffers fromidentity problems, with two related acronyms circulating incommon parlance: information and communications technology anddevelopment (ICTD) vs. information and communications technologyfor development (ICT4D). These two acronyms, although similar,carry different meanings, with the latter being moredeterministic about ‘development’ resulting from the introductionof the ICTs in question. The broader acronym ICTD, then,encompasses also the study of information technologies in situ,such as Horst’s study of cell phone usage in Jamaica (Horst andMiller, 2006), Bell’s study of middle class computer usage inSouth Asia (2006), or Burrell’s study of Internet café usage inGhana (2007). It would thus seem that the acronym HCI4D carries alevel of determinism and purpose; seeking not merely tounderstand how humans and computers interact in developingregions, but also how this understanding can be used to activelyimprove lives and livelihoods for people in these developingregions.HCI4D also has very diverse origins. Much early research wasinitiated within particular problem domains, for example Braa(1996) reports on user participation in the development ofinformation systems for district clinics in South Africa, drawingon the participatory design tradition (Braa, 1996) LouisLiebenberg & Edwin Blake report on CyberTracker, a field computersystem designed to support scientific data collection from expertanimal trackers who were non-literate (Leibenberg, 1998; Blake,2002). Following the first ICTD conference in 2006, and the User-Centered Design for International Economic and CommunityDevelopment Workshop at CHI 2007, the community has finallystarted to coalesce. Indeed, one can observe that in the yearsfollowing, there has been a veritable explosion of HCI4Dpublications. But as outlined above, the foundations for thiscommunity are far from being set.In this paper, we seek to contribute to these foundations byreviewing its history, members, and the work that defines it. Wefirst reflect on the genesis of the HCI4D community, laying out

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the historical context that has set the stage for the work beingdone today. It then undertakes a survey of what we consider tobe HCI4D literature, highlighting papers that best illustratebroad trends. The paper concludes with a reflective discussionaround the nascent community, exploring lessons learned, and waysin which we might challenge ourselves to do better and reachfarther.Historical ContextIn January 1982 Jean Jacques Servan-Schreiber established theWorld Center for Computer Science and Human Resources in France,specifically to design personal computers for Third Worldcountries. On board with this mission were Nicholas Negroponte,Alan Kay, and Seymour Papert, with plans to develop computer-based education projects in Senegal, Kuwait, Ghana, and thePhilippines. While the program faltered shortly thereafter(Eastmond and Mosenthal, 1985) it is apparent that thisexperience was not without its influence on the researchers, andseems to have revived itself as the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)project (Camfield, 2007). Independently, another small movement was growing. Severalresearchers from Apple did a study in 1995 using the Newton as arecord-keeping device for auxiliary nurse midwives in India,which was published in CHI in 1997 (Grisedale, 1997). Contemporary with this work, Louis Leibenberg, Edwin Blake andother researchers were working on CyberTracker, a field computersystem designed to support data collection from expert animaltrackers who were not literate (Leibenberg, 1998, Blake, 2002).This project, as with many other development-related projectsexperienced difficulties gaining acceptance in the mainstream HCIcommunity, and initial submissions to CHI were rejected by onereviewer because the premise of illiterate users seemed tooimplausible. Indeed, this problem was systemic, and Susan Draynotes that when one researcher complained how “no one seemed totake the ‘developing world’ seriously at CHI,” her follow-upchallenge eventually led to a Development Consortium proposal forSouth Africa.


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Gary Marsden went to University of Cape Town in South Africa tojoin Edwin Blake specifically to work on mobile computing fordevelopment, and together with Jacques Hugo and Marion Waltonauthored the CHI Bulletin summarizing the results of the CHI 2002Development Consortium in South Africa (Hugo, 2002). This shortbulletin is remarkably insightful, and continues to speak toongoing challenges within both HCI4D and ICTD as a whole:

“In multicultural environments it is even more important to consider how our understanding of the complex dialectic between culture, economy and technological innovation influences our ability to empower our people.”

Their suggestion that software should be adapted for communaluser rather than individual preferences (“communitization”) islater corroborated by Pal and Patra’s research on computer-aidedlearning in India (Patra, 2007). However, possibly because of theeconomic downturn in Silicon Valley at the time, they were unableto achieve their goal of hosting CHI 2007 in South Africa due tothe high travel costs. Instead, they hosted a DIS 2008 in CapeTown with a large turnout. More importantly, DIS 2008 wasarguably the first SIGCHI conference to be held in sub-SaharanAfrica, and the organizers sought to make HCI4D a priority in theconference program. However, even before DIS2008, we saw another very concreteoutcome of this Consortium: a special issue of interactions in 2003on “HCI in the developing world,” edited by Susan Dray, PaulaKotze, and David Siegel. With eleven articles based on work inChina, South Africa, India, and Brazil this issue was ahead ofits time (Dray, 2003). It would not be for another three yearsbefore we would see this many ideas around HCI4D presented in oneplace. Relevant research was being done in other sectors as well. TheInternational Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)established a working group on Social Implications of Computersin Developing Countries (IFIP WG9.4) which held its first fullconference in Nairobi in 1992 (Bhatnagar and Odera, 1992), andhas met biannually since that time. However, the work in thisgroup typically focuses on the impact of technology, rather thanDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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exploring technology design. From 1996 onwards Jørn Braa and histeam designed and deployed district health information systems inSouth Africa. This work was initially funded by the Norwegiandevelopment agency Norad, but has since attracted funding frominternational donors including the World Health Organisation. Thesoftware has now been extended and deployed to many countriesincluding Mozambique, Tanzania (Zanzibar), India, Ethiopia,Sierra Leone and Cuba. Reports are published in venues like theParticipatory Design Conference (Braa 1996), WITFOR (Braa andBlobel, 2003), and The Information Society (Braa and Hedberg, 2002).Similarly, educational technology received some recognitionoutside of traditional HCI venues, such as the series of fiveworkshops so far titled “Technology for Education in DevelopingCountries” organized under the auspices of the IEEE, with themost recent two workshops held in 2006 and 2008 respectively inTanzania and Uganda. The situation in South Africa may be considered something of aspecial case. The political changes over the past 20 years inSouth Africa have resulted in a strong commitment from politicalleaders to apply the modern technological capabilities that wereonce the province of a racially defined minority, to an inclusiveform of national development. This commitment is reflected in thecreation of institutions such as the Meraka institute with itsmission to “facilitate national economic and social developmentthrough human capital development and needs-based research andinnovation, leading to products and services based on Informationand Communication Technology” (www.meraka.org.za), but may alsohave created an academic environment where research on ICT andDevelopment is more highly valued than in many other countries.Funding from international aid donors has also been directed toexplore the potential of ICT in development. In 1999, theFiankoma project (www.fiankoma.org) with funding from the UKDepartment for International Development (DfID) set up apartnership project between schools in Ghana and the UK to sharedigital stories, and to help youngsters in both countriesrecognize how much they had in common as well as how their livesdiffered. A similar project focusing on Muslim girls in Londonand Ghana was established in 2004 (www.divoproject.org). Since


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2006, the European Union and UNESCO have sponsored annual e-Learning Africa conferences. From 2002 – 2005, the EU funded theIndo European Systems Usability Partnership, led by Andy Smith atThames Valley University and Anirudha Joshi at IIT Bombay workedto develop capabilities in HCI in India, resulting in the firstIndia HCI conference in 2004, and a growing network ofpractitioners and researchers. A similar partnership model iscurrently being used in the Sino European Systems UsabilityNetwork to develop HCI capacity in China (Smith et al., 2007).A separate thread was a series of workshops oninternationalization of products and systems – the IWIPSworkshops starting yearly in 1999, and geared towards looking atproduct design from a more global and international culturallyaware perspective.A further thread of movement began approximately in 2003, when UCBerkeley professor Eric Brewer submitted a multi-disciplinarygrant proposal to the US National Science Foundation (NSF)partnering social scientists and computer scientists in anendeavor to jointly design and evaluate a number of informationtechnologies “for billions”. In addition to several systems andinfrastructure projects, this also led to a live video-conferenced class jointly taught by staff at UC Berkeley and atCarnegie Mellon. The UC Berkeley group eventually became knownas the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER)research group, with numerous publications and projects in theeducation, literacy, healthcare, and wireless infrastructurespaces. Meanwhile, early work from a group at the MIT Media Laband Georgia Tech introduced novel interfaces for communicationsapplications in the Dominican Republic (Escobedo and Best, 2003;Sin et al., 2004). Michael Best, from this group, would go on tofound the Technologies and International Development Lab withinGeorgia Tech’s GVU Center, while Carnegie Mellon later createdTechBridgeWorld (Dias 2006), a comprehensive experiential programfor undergraduate and graduate students interested in developingregions projects.In 2005 the UK Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Councilbegan an initiative on Bridging the Global Digital Divide(www.bgdd.org). This initiative brought together an


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interdisciplinary group of 25 leading researchers to set out newresearch directions in ICT and Development. The participants inthis initiative ranged from technical specializations such asspeech synthesis and photovoltaics, through interaction design,to social scientists, economists and development geographers. Thefour projects that were created by this initiative each hadstrong elements of both participatory design and human-computerinteraction. Each project had at least one researcher with atrack record in HCI, and each project team committed strongly toparticipatory design principles. Drawing on this commitment aworkshop at the Participatory Design Conference in 2006 wassuggested to examine relations between participatory IT designand participatory development practice. Although this workshopwas cancelled due to insufficient registrations, the idea waspicked up by Susan Dray who proposed holding a similar workshopat CHI 2007.It is not quite clear when either ICTD as a general field orHCI4D began to gain critical mass. As graduate students, TapanParikh at the University of Washington and Matthew Kam at UCBerkeley both strove to make their research gain acceptance inthe HCI community, with some initial success reflected in a bestpaper award (Parikh, 2003). In 2005, Microsoft founded MicrosoftResearch India in Bangalore with a research portfolio thatincludes HCI projects for emerging markets. More importantly,Microsoft created funding avenues such as the Digital InclusionFunding program and Latin American and Caribbean CollaborativeICT Research Virtual Institute, which enabled university-basedresearch projects in ICTD to flourish. With the addition of theICTD conference as a potential venue, it is almost no surprisethat we see a veritable explosion of publications in HCI4D in2006 and afterwards.While our origins may be diverse, the community is beginning tocoalesce. The first HCI4D workshop was held at CHI 2007. A majorcontributing factor to this workshop was funding from the USNational Science Foundation to support a small number ofresearchers and practitioners from developing countries to attendand participate. This successful workshop was followed up bysimilar workshops at HCI 2007, DIS 2008, CHI 2008, and PDC 2008,


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as well as related panels and discussions at HCI International2007 and Interact 2007. In 2008, IFIP Technical Committee 13(Human-Computer Interaction) approved the establishment of a newspecial interest group on Interaction Design and InternationalDevelopment, thus providing an international organizationalumbrella around which we can organize. A Survey of the HCI4D LiteratureAs the previous sections have discussed, the quantity of researchin HCI4D has grown substantially over the past decade. Thissection seeks to review the broad trends in that research, fromthe early first steps to the present day. Due to the volume ofwork, It is not practical to cite all articles here. Instead, wecite work we consider to be representative of a particular trend.Many more references can be found within our online bibliographyat http://bib.hci4d.org.

Cross-cultural HCIPerhaps deserving of first mention in this section is the fieldof cross-cultural HCI, which investigates the relationship of cultureto user interface design research and practice. This line ofwork grew out of efforts in the early 1990’s to developsystematic methods for adapting commercial software for sale oninternational markets. Several early books in this area(Nielsen, 1990, Apple Computer, 1992, Fernandes, 1995, del Galdoand Nielsen, 1996) serve as seminal references in this area.Researchers in the HCI community began to explore cross-culturalissues later in the decade. A workshop in 1992 (Kellogg andThomas, 1993) considered broad issues, while in the same year,Christine Borgman (1992) issued a call to action in the pages ofthe SIGCHI Bulletin.A considerable body of work emerged in following years. Severalpapers focused on the issue of meaning as it relates tousability. For example, Evers (1998) investigated the role ofmetaphors in interface design, while Bourges-Waldegg andScrivener (1998) proposed a new HCI approach, dubbed Meaning inMediated Interaction, to help understand culturally determinedusability problems. Other works investigated cross-culturalDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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usability of particular technologies, such as mobile phones(Katre 2006), ATMs (de Angeli et al. 2003), and digital libraries(Duncker 2002).In most of this work, the focus lies on differences in culture, thatis, in translating user interface designs and principles from oneculture to another, or designing interfaces which are as immuneas possible to cultural differences. In most cases, the culturesof interest were those of other developed nations with distinctcultures, such as Japan, and the concept of internationaldevelopment is rarely mentioned as a goal. Nonetheless, manylessons from this body of work are applicable to HCI4D research,as much of such work is carried out by researchers whose culturesdiffer from those of target users. It is also likely that thesefirst steps in interface internationalization were a necessaryprecursor to the later, development-focused research discussedbelow.

Approaches and TechniquesAuthors in HCI4D have approached the field from a wide array ofperspectives, backgrounds, and methodological traditions. Thissection reviews the various approaches and techniques which havecharacterized the research in the area.Interaction Design and Usability EvaluationThe majority of papers examined took the form of exercises ininteraction design and evaluation. Work of this sort involvedthe design and construction of an interactive technologicalartifact of some sort, with explicit focus given to the userinterface.This considerable body of work was spread across severalapplication areas, as discussed below. It was also characterizedby the feature which chiefly defined it as related todevelopment. Some work mainly addressed needs presented by theenvironment in a particular area. For instance, Escobedo and Best(2003) described a novel interface to facilitate VoIPcommunication over poor quality networks. To address aninadequate supply of PCs in some Indian classrooms, Pawar et al.


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(2006) described a system for connecting multiple mice to asingle PC. Meanwhile, Sterling et al. (2007) introduced a devicecalled ‘AIR’ (Advancement through Interactive Radio) which allowswomen in Kenya to contribute commentary to local radio programswithout needing a phone. While the application domains of theseprojects are diverse, the common thread they share is a primaryfocus on environmental constraints.On the other hand, some work was primarily motivated by uniqueneeds of the users in a developing region. Much of such work wasmotivated by the illiteracy or semi-literacy which is widespreadin developing regions. An early example was an investigation byParikh et al. (2003) of design considerations for record-keepingin microfinance groups, whose members were often illiterate orsemi-literate. Additionally, Katre (2004) developed a mnemonic-based system to allow illiterate villagers to identify themselvesto a computer kiosk. Medhi et al. (2007) also worked with semi-literate populations in India, this time on the design of twosystems: one for conducting job searches, and one for creatingcity maps. One system, called ‘Jadoo’ (Chand and Dey, 2006),focused on computer literacy as opposed to print literacy, byallowing users unfamiliar with computers to access onlineinformation via a paper-based interface and a computer-literatefacilitator. While these systems may be interpreted as being designed aroundconcepts of lack or 'deficiency', other systems have sought tobuild on the unique skills and capabilities of users indeveloping regions. For example, Blake (2002) reports on ahandheld system provided to allow experienced animal trackers inSouth Africa to report their findings in electronic form. Sharma(2007) reports on a computer aided design system to support womeninvolved in Chikan embroidery.Finally, several projects span both of these categories, withboth environmentally-based and user-based motivations. Forinstance, the Braille writing tutor developed by Kalra et al.(2007) is designed to be low-cost, low-power, and robust, butalso addresses the language needs of Indian users in supportingright-to-left writing.Design MethodologyDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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A considerable number of papers focused on general designmethodologies for developing world contexts, rather than onparticular artifacts or systems. Authors discussed thechallenges of conducting user research in rural settings, outsidethe laboratory, and in foreign cultures.Many papers took the stance that existing HCI methods were notsuitable out of the box, and need to be adapted. A group ofSouth African researchers has pioneered in this area. Chetty,Tucker, and Blake (2004) described “a user centered designapproach and modified software development lifecycle” which theytailored for use in the design of a telemedecine system in ruralSouth Africa. Similarly, Blake and Tucker (2006) proposed a so-called “socially aware software engineering” model for thedeveloping world based on principles from the participatorydesign and action research traditions. Finally Maunder, Marsden,Gruijters, and Blake (2007) introduced a methodology termed“UCD4Dev” which builds on previous work and incorporates elementsfrom the Real Access/Real Impact criteria developed byBridges.org, an international NGO working in this space.Relatively early work in India by Chavan (2005), which introducedseveral novel methods for conducting usability evaluation withinthe Indian cultural context, is also notable here.Several papers focused on the task of designing for rural users,highlighting the additional challenges that a rural settingposes. In addition to Chetty et al. mentioned above, Maunder etal. (2006) evaluated the aforementioned Real Access/Real Impactcriteria as a tool for determining needs of rural end users. Atthe same conference, Heukelman (2006) reported on a study aboutthe applicability of UCD methods to rural user interface designproblems, finding that users with little computer experiencecould evaluate designs, but not effectively produce them.Another group of researchers based in the U.S., short ofproposing novel methodologies, instead reported a series oflessons learned in the course of participatory design exercisesin developing regions. Kam et al. (2006) discussed lessons incarrying out participatory design with rural school children.Ramachandran et al. (2007) reflect on three field studies fromUganda and India and offer techniques for eliciting feedback and


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securing participation from rural users. Meanwhile, Schwartzmanand Parikh (2007) described practices for establishing andmaintaining crucial relationships with local partners, and Kam(2008) endorsed the practice of involving local undergraduates infieldwork.A third cluster of papers evaluated past applications ofparticipatory design to information systems projects in thedeveloping world. Three such papers were a result of the HealthInformation Systems Project (HISP) begun in 1995 in South Africa.Puri et al. (2004) investigated three instances of the projectand concluded that there is no single algorithmic best practiceto participatory design in a developing world context. Braa etal. (2004) conducted an in-depth case study of the project inCuba, revealing how the participatory process was restricted bypolitical and organizational constraints. Elovaara et al. (2006)compared two project instances in Tanzania and Sweden, findingextensive differences. Byrne and Alexander (2006) examined theethical considerations of participatory research in communitysettings, revealing several important considerations. Indeed, participatory principles are ubiquitous in much of thework discussed in this survey. This is not surprising, asparticipation has a rich history in international developmentmore broadly. Dearden & Rizvi (2008) present a useful survey ofthis history. Nonetheless, the extent to which the true spiritof participation has been embodied by HCI4D research is up fordebate. We examine this issue later in the paper.ReviewsDespite the relative newness of HCI4D, several papers have takena step back to reflect upon the challenges and opportunitieswithin the field itself. One of the earliest to do so was Hugo(2002), who extolled South Africa as a kind of “virtuallaboratory” where a changing socioeconomic landscape made forplentiful research opportunities in HCI. Similarly, Kotzé (2002)spoke of the world-class HCI education, practice, and researchactivities underway in southern Africa. Indeed, considerablecontributions to the field would flow from that area in the yearsto follow. Wang (2003) provided a similar review for China.


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A more comprehensive review of early HCI4D activities wasauthored by Dray et al.(2003), in the form of an introduction tothe interactions special issue on HCI4D, which was discussed above.Later, two survey papers from the TIER research group at UCBerkeley (Brewer et al. 2005, Brewer et al. 2006) described firstthe “case” for technology research in developing regions, andsecond the various challenges that such research oftenencountered. Both articles contained substantial sections on HCIrelated topics.EthnographiesSeveral researchers, many of them affiliated with commercialresearch labs, have undertaken the study of technology indeveloping regions from an ethnographic perspective. Their work,while not always intended to inform the design of a specificartifact, is intended to broaden our understanding of technologyuse in the developing world.A popular topic of inquiry for this work has been the mobilephone, which is not surprising given the phenomenal growth ofmobile technology in recent years. Genevieve Bell has examinedmobile phone use, among other technologies, in south andsoutheast asia. Jan Chipchase, in his capacity as a researcherfor Nokia, focuses exclusively on mobile phone use throughout theworld, including many developing regions. His findings areshared mainly in the form of presentations at various venues(Ichikawa et al., 2005, Chipchase, 2007). Heather Horst hasinvestigated mobile use in Ghana, India, Jamaica, and SouthAfrica (Horst and Miller, 2006), and Kutoma Wakunuma (2006) hasworked in Zambia, studying in particular the effect of mobilephones on gender relations. Other topics of inquiry haveincluded internet cafés (Salvador et al., 2005), and technologyuse among Ghanaian diaspora (Burrell, 2007).Perhaps the most important functions of this fascinating body ofwork have been first to highlight the surprising extent of ICTadoption in the developing world, and second, to reveal the wideranging and fascinating differences in the character of thatadoption. In doing so, the work has challenged the assumptionsof those accustomed to traditional uses of technology in a


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developed world setting, and likely served as an inspiration forsome of the other research discussed in this paper.User studiesWhile much of the work described above involves formalexperimentation with users, such studies were usually based on anartifact or system presented in the same publication. Relativelyfew papers presented user studies conducted for their own sake.One such paper is due do Medhi et al. (2007), and investigatesoptimal audio-visual representations for illiterate users. Otherexamples include the work of Walton and Vukovic (2003) oninformation scent, and an investigation by Cheng et al. (2008) ofparticipant and interviewer attitudes toward handheld technologyas used in surveys.

Application DomainsHCI4D research spans many domains, most of which mirror typicaldomains of international development more generally. Projectsfocusing on education (e.g. Kam et al., 2006, Furtado et al.,2008) and health (e.g. Braa et al., 2004, DeRenzi et al., 2008)were most plentiful. Microfinance (e.g. Parikh et al., 2003),illiteracy (e.g. Medhi et al., 2007), economic efficiency (e.g.Javid and Parikh, 2007), agriculture (e.g. Plauché and Prabaker,2006) and communication (e.g. Sin, 2004) also receivedconsiderable attention. On the other hand, several areasreceived surprisingly little attention. Few papers dealt withgender, despite the prominence of that issue in the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. Also surprising was the near lack of work ine-government (only one paper (Katre, 2004) by our count), an areawhich has received considerable attention in the broaderdevelopment literature (Heeks (2006) presents a good survey).Sterling’s (2007) work on interactive radio is one of few HCI4Dpapers in the area of public media. Two papers (Blake, 2002 andPascoe, 2000) studied the work of trackers and ecologists inAfrican wildlife reserves, and appear to be the only two papersin our survey with an environmental bent. This is notable giventhe growing prevalence of ‘sustainability’ in the broader CHIliterature (Blevis, 2007). Finally, two publications (Bell, 2006Draft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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and Wyche et al., 2008) examined the role of technology inreligion from an HCI perspective. Considering the overwhelmingpopularity of religion in many developing regions, this is likelyto be a growth area.

DiscussionIn the previous sections of this paper, we have surveyed what webelieve to be the extent of the field of HCI4D. In this section,we take time to reflect on the stories and trends we haveobserved, and to look ahead to the future of the field.

Some Notable TrendsWe have categorized HCI4D research along two major axes, thefirst being the technique or approach taken by the research.Categories along that axis are interaction design and evaluation,design methodologies, user studies, ethnographies, and reviews.Several of these categories are notable. A tendency towardsmethodology papers is visible in much early work. This is likelya natural result of the considerable and unique challenges posedby the field. As researchers encountered these challenges, theywere keen to publish their experiences in dealing with them. Insome cases, this may be compounded by the lengthy time ordifficulty required to obtain a positive empirical resultsuitable for publication. Nonetheless, much work remains to bedone in this area, and much of it cannot be expected togeneralize, as the cultures of many developing regions are asdistinct from each other as they are from any developed nation.We also observed a small number of stand-alone user studies, ofthe kind found in classical HCI research. Upon reflection, thisis not very surprising, for several reasons. First, research'for development' is naturally likely to favor applied projects.Second, one could make an ethical argument to the effect thatsuch research carries benefits only for the researcher and notthe participants, at least in the short run. Nonetheless, webelieve that there remains a compelling case for the developmentof some types of basic knowledge regarding users in developing


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regions. Illiteracy (Medhi et al., 2007) serves as a keyexample.Areas of application define the second category axis. Inaddition to the areas that we mentioned earlier as lightlytreated (gender, e-government, environment, public media,religion), there were also several application areas that weconsidered notable for their absence from the survey. We listthem here, and note that this list is certainly not an exhaustiveone. E-Democracy, which involves the use of ICTs to enhancedemocratic processes such as transparency, participation inpublic policy decision-making, etc., is one such area. Theseprocesses seem both important to development and amenable totechnological support. Also, no papers discussed post-conflictreconciliation, which is unfortunately a growth area in manydeveloping regions (the authors are aware of at least one projectunderway on this topic). Finally, as developing regions undergomodernization, the area of cultural preservation seems to grow inimportance, and has obvious connections to HCI through mediatechnologies. We look forward to learning of future explorationsin these and other fields.

Participation and PowerEarlier in this paper, we described the prevalence of the notionof participation throughout the surveyed research. Indeed, theterm 'participatory' appears with striking frequency in theliterature. However, we believe that the true nature of theparticipation carried out by many of these projects deservesdiscussion, specifically with reference to power relationships. Oakley's (1991) characterization of the different aims ofparticipatory working in development is a useful starting point.He suggests that participation may refer to three very differentforms of engagement:

Level 1: Participation as contribution or passiveparticipation: Here participants make voluntarycontributions to a predetermined project in return of someperceived future benefit.


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Level 2: Participation as organization or externally drivenparticipation: Here, the external development actor leadsthe reform or creation of some new organization through aprocess of participation.Level 3: Participation as empowering and leading socialinclusion: Here participation aims to develop skills andabilities within the community to enable people to managetheir own needs better and decide on aspects that theyselect and determine. This type of participation seeks tobuild the capacity of the community to act on their own inthe future.

These different forms of participation imply very different typesof relationship between project staff and beneficiary groups, andhave very different outcomes from the perspective of development.Much of the work reviewed in this survey may fit into Oakley’smodel at Level 1. The general aims of the project are definedbefore engaging with any specific community, and participantshave only a marginal input to make. The difficulty withparticipation at Level 1 is that the project has been definedoutside of the community that is meant to benefit and often willmiss the real local needs of the people. Of course, the detailedcontextual, ethnographic and participatory methods used in designall aim to avoid this situation, but the level of detailed studyand relationship building required are rarely practical withinthe constraints of a few short visits by designers to thecommunity. In any case, this form of participation can onlyprovide for discussions of the means by which technology might beused to achieve some given ends, but does not open the questionof whether the ends themselves should be prioritized. Development projects of any sort always involve a range ofstakeholders, and these individuals and groups have differentgoals and are subject to different rewards and incentives. Whenthey come together within a particular project, it is a mistaketo suppose that they are equal participants in a freenegotiation. There are large differentials in power. Crucially,the technology designers and donors are free to make majordecisions and deploy substantial resources that the beneficiarieswill find hard to counter. Decisions that seem small to theDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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external designers may have considerable impact on localconditions.Several questions come to mind: Who decides on the overall aimsof a participatory project? How might someone in the beneficiarycommunity be able to change focus of the project? What budgetarycontrol does the community have over the project? To what extentare the software and hardware designers contracted to deliverbenefits to the community, or vice versa? And finally, who willjudge the project's success or failure? We present thesequestions both as a practical reference for use at the outset ofa participatory HCI4D project, and to stimulate discussion aroundthis issue within the HCI4D community.We should also recognise the enormous cultural diversity betweendifferent people in the developing world, probably far greater(if these things can be measured) than in the G7 countries. Thereis no a-priori reason to expect a solution that works well withXhosa farmers in South Africa to be appropriate Kikikuyu farmersin Kenya, Dinka farmers in Sudan, or Marathi farmers in India. fthere was a technology design that had a reliably beneficialimpact on development outcomes, then we would have a magicbullet!Because of this, it is more likely that results in this area willbuild up slowly as a library of techniques, methodologies,toolkits and design solutions that have worked in one place andmay be transferrable to others. We should also expect to seenegative results showing how some seemingly compatible ideas failto transfer. Another possibility is the build up of knowledgeabout technology use and design in particular cultural settings -in the same way as knowledge about domains like hospitals, airtransport, schools builds up over time. A framework such asCarroll, Rosson & Sutcliffe's claims work may be useful here.

Documenting Our ExperiencesAs researchers, it is incumbent upon us to document ourexperiences, how we achieved our results, and even what may nothave worked as well. As some of our previous discussion mayindicate, however, not all of our experiences are publishable asresearch – in effect, they cannot be framed as “contributions”Draft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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because they fall more into the category of practical work(“social work, engineering”) than generalizable research. Sosuccess for a researcher, therefore, is moving the field forward,often proxied by publication; in HCI, preferably publication inCHI. Yet, methods that procure good, replicable, and reliableresearch results are not necessarily compatible with developmentprojects. As HCI “for development” researchers, we face a keytension between the goals of ‘development’ and research. Indeed,pilot projects abound – many papers that have “succeeded” (e.g.gotten published in CHI) have not lasted beyond their initialpilot deployments. For the scope of a given research project,then, we must frame our contributions not necessarily as a directcontribution to sustainable development (although that is alaudable goal) but to prioritize contribution to the knowledgethat can be used by other people seeking to use technologyeffectively in developing regions. However, the question remains– do paradigms of HCI4D change in the context of sustainabledeployments?We should also consider both our ethical stance as researchersand the long term implications of our work once we leave thefield. How do we withdraw gracefully without negativeimplications for the project, for the field as a whole and futuredevelopment projects? Chetty (2006) remarks that upon leavingthe field “we took away a method of communication that the doctorand nurse enjoyed and found useful for work. Removing MuTIreturned them to a system which they disliked, and further onethat was subject to failure…” While we can set expectationsappropriately, our inevitable departures entail disappointments,and over time can set up false expectations or even cyncismtowards future researchers or development practitioners. Onemeans of addressing this issue is to “codesign, codeploy,”implying the development of strong partner relationships, inwhich the researchers and the partners embrace the projectjointly (Brewer, 2006). However, this requires significantinvestment of time on the part of the researcher.

Defining HCI, RevisitedIn the introduction to this paper, the definition of HCI4D wasleft as something of an open question. While it would beDraft article under submission, please do not circulate without author permission. 10/24/22 9:22 AM

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foolhardy to ever attempt to completely close it, we feel thathaving conducted the review presented above, we are betterpositioned to revisit the topic.It seems natural to define HCI4D in parts: the HCI, and the 4D.The latter is sure to be the most contentious component of theacronym. Many different definitions of human development havebeen proposed, from Bentham through to Sen (1999) and beyond.Moreover, any definition is unavoidably political. Indiscussions on this topic amongst the authors, one authorproposed a thought experiment: Could the design of a more usableelectronic surveillance system for an oppressive developing-country regime could ever be considered '4D'? He insisted not.But a second author countered that some oppressive regimes havebeen demonstrably more successful than their democraticcounterparts at bringing about the social stability that isconducive to economic development. Would improving theefficiency of such a regime's system of governance not beconsidered development? While there can be no definitiveresolution to this ensuing debate, it reveals the value judgementinherent in any definition of development, and thus of HCI4D.Admittedly, the work reviewed in this survey have tended toward amore liberal definition of development. There are no papers onelectronic surveillance systems. The focus has instead been oneither minimally contentious development goals, such as healthcare or agriculture, or on marginalized groups, such as micro-credit borrowers or urban domestic workers. In any case, withsuch a political concept at our base, we have two options: take afirm and exclusive political stand, or allow ourselves to bedefined amorphously by the character of the research which findsits way into our collective discourse. The latter is likely tobe the reality as nobody is in a position to impose the former.Moreover, given the newness of HCI4D as a field, it is importantto embrace an inclusive working definition in order not todismiss potentially important work in a plurality of areas.The second part of the acronym, HCI, is easier to define,although not trivial. As stated, the ACM definition holds thatHCI is "a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation andimplementation of interactive computing systems for human use and


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with the study of major phenomena surrounding them". Again, thisseems overly broad for the work covered in this paper, as the'major phenomena' surrounding interactive systems could be takento encompass all of ICT4D research. Instead, it seems that wehave treated HCI most basically as a body of established methodsto guide the task of design. Perhaps a more suitable definitionwould define HCI4D as any research that uses conventional HCImethods, or proposes new methods, in the design of interactivesystems, '4D'. But again, at this early stage, the wisest stanceis likely an inclusive one.

Systemic IssuesOne of the systemic obstacles that impede the development ofHCI4D in the so-called developing world is the dearth of HCIemployment opportunities and programs in higher education there.Realistically, it is not possible for HCI4D as a field to grow ina balanced direction if it continues to be largely driven byresearchers and practitioners from the so-called industrializednations. Fortunately, this state of affairs appears to bechanging. What can we do collectively as a community – spread across boththe developing and developed world – to accelerate themainstreaming of HCI in the developing world? We cite threepossible approaches by way of illustration. First, more HCIresearchers, educators and professionals who work in thedeveloping world could recruit local undergraduates toparticipate in their projects (Kam 2008). There could be moreplentiful internship opportunities in developing regions that thestrongest students would find challenging, and hence give them anoutlet for their ambition to achieve. More important, suchopportunities will provide them with an exposure to HCI that theyare otherwise unlikely to have.Second, more HCI practitioners could volunteer their time to makerelevant work in HCI accessible to other practitioners indeveloping regions. Case in point: uiGarden (www.uiGarden.net) isa bilingual website that aims to foster greater interactionbetween the HCI community in China and elsewhere in the world.One of the primary activities of its editorial staff is to


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coordinate with volunteers in translating relevant HCI articlesfrom English to Chinese, and to publish articles in bothlanguages on its website. Through such efforts, HCI articleswritten in English can achieve a wider readership throughout therest of the world. Third, the global HCI community can undertake more collaborationsthat are specifically oriented toward HCI4D. The PlaypowerFoundation (www.playpower.org) illustrates one possible model.The goal behind the Playpower Foundation is to create an open-source community around an inexpensive $12 computer withtelevision displays. This community comprises local workinggroups whose members experiment with this technology platform andexplore how e-learning games can be locally developed for it totarget locally relevant educational needs.

In short, we encourage more members in our community to explorehow they can establish and contribute to local chapters that arepart of a larger network. Through such collective efforts, we canpromote greater knowledge exchange, and hence local capacitybuilding.

Broader IssuesWhile much progress has been made within the HCI4D community, weare still not at critical mass. Susan Dray’s early efforts andthe more recent workshops and conferences have brought together anumber of researchers, but many efforts are still disjoint.Particularly important locations in terms of Interaction Designfor International Development (ID4ID) are South Africa (and tosome extent other countries in Southern Africa), India, China,the US, UK and Scandinavia. In other regions, internationalagencies, national governments and non-governmental agencies(NGOs) are engaged in a range of activities dealing withparticular development domains (health, education, agriculture,economic development, etc.) but few organizations are connectingto HCI research. The European-based International Federation forInformation Processing (IFIP) may be able to play a key role inhelping to make these connections.


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As a community we are also trying to build a common vocabulary,consistent ways of describing the scope and variety of work thatwe do as HCI4D researchers. Some work is about interactiontechniques for difficult settings, other work is aboutinstitutional support. There are clearly big differences betweenworking with government agencies, private sector, community basedorganizations and private individuals. These differences need tobe explored, and in some ways may be more significant in the longrun than differences between domains (agriculture, trade,education etc.).Most importantly, over the past couple of years, we also need torecognize people within the community that contribute in non-standard capacities, who are contributing their personalexpertise to development activities, but have not found a way toor have chosen not to turn that into recognizable ‘high qualityresearch output' in the traditional sense. The CHI workshopformats tend to attract people in this category. Specificexamples of researchers in this category are Susan Dray, who as aconsultant cannot publish much of her research due toconfidentiality issues, and Jan Chipchase, who contributesprolifically via his blog and presentations posted on hiswebsite. The creation of respectable research forums and publicationopportunities like ICTD, ITID, the ID4ID special interest groupof IFIP are very important in building a sustainable researchenvironment. However there remains a gap in terms of theavailability of peer-reviewed technical venues specifically forHCI4D researchers.

ConclusionThe next 10 years will prove crucial for the nascent community ofHCI4D, as it tries to establish itself as a legitimate field ofresearch. Significant momentum has built over the last fiveyears, and the excitement and enthusiasm around the area ispalpable. Nonetheless, it would be foolhardy to claim that acritical mass has been reached. Sustainable availability ofresearch funding remains an important concern, and much workremains in building a cohesive community to unite the disjoint


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pockets of relevant work distributed around the globe, and acrossvarious sectors (academia, international agencies, governments,NGOs). Meanwhile, considerable numbers of researchers arecontributing their personal expertise to development activities,but have not found a way to turn that into recognizable 'highquality research output' in the traditional sense. The creationof respectable research forums and publication opportunities likeICTD, ITID, and the ID4ID special interest group of IFIP areessential to building a sustainable research environment. Mostimportantly, all this must be done in a way that is trulysupportive of real, inclusive, needs-driven development goals.This paper, in surveying the history, members, and work of theHCI4D community, is intended as a next logical step in thisprogression. As members of this exciting community, we lookforward to the future ahead.

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Human-Computer Interaction for Development: A Brief History

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