The occasional light expression

Jan Chipchase from Nokia Research Center has an interesting research article on the challenges of designing mobile phones and phone services for non-literate users in emerging markets. Using rich field data from India, China, Nepal and other emerging market regions, Jan notes that non-literate users cope with their lack of literacy and numeracy skills in interesting ways to somewhat successfully navigate through phone features requiring these skills - such as asynchronous text based communication and contact management.

The research poses some interesting questions . Is a purely visual icon-based User Interface even a feasible solution - especially for complex tasks such as changing GPRS settings? Is there an unstructured and parallel and largely invisible universe of symbols, cues, and social handshakes that facilitate non literate users’ successful navigation of phones and devices defined primarily for literate users? Is it indeed possible to ignore the environmental context of paper scraps, notebooks, and other scribbling media that are used in conjunction with the primary technology to facilitate navigating, almost hustling  through the implicit literacy and numeracy requirements imposed by the phone? What kinds of redundant support need to be provided through audio or human interventions for non-literate users to confidently and casually use advanced textual features on thier phones?

Jan poses a Simple Non-literacy test at the end of the article which states “If you’re wondering just how hard it is for a non-literate person to use a mobile phone? Change the language setting on your phone to one you don’t understand for a day and see how well you manage.” Recently at Bangalore airport I helped a hapless Sardarji with his Nokia N70, where he had inadvertently (magically?) changed the language settings to Chinese and wasnt able to figure out how to get the phone back to English mode!