Why did you enter the GSMA mWomen Design Challenge?
I am passionate about user experience design and product innovation. The research findings indicated a serious mobile phone gender gap which needed to be addressed. I wanted to make a positive impact on the lives and needs of resource-poor women through ‘design for development’ and to also share insights gained while working with teams on technological solutions for growth economies, e.g. Myshop and Merry Go Round, which enhances interactions of informal self-help groups through mobile solutions.
Explain why your design is suitable for resource-poor women.
The design addresses the literacy limitations of resource-poor women using real-life metaphors as simplified icons which users can easily relate to, with no requirement for behavioural change on the part of the user. While the concept permeates cultural boundaries, it increases the rate of adoption, confidence and trust to interact with the features and functions as facilitated by the design.
The provision of the SIM card icon on the homescreen is deemed vital in developing markets. There is frequent usage of this feature to access mobile money, purchase of airtime, etc. As such, the design ensures that the homescreen sustains the basic tasks the target user may often need to accomplish by owning a phone. In addition, for users to experience reduced charging cycles, save on the cost of paying to charge a phone and enjoy increased usage time, the design incorporates 16 shades of grey to support low power modes for device display.
What may appear as complex navigations and interactions to the target users have been simplified. There is less abrupt departure from the homescreen: features/options can be accessed with one step away with the homescreen still faded in the background. Life-enhancing pre-installed widgets can intuitively be accessed by a swipe gesture indicated by the two hand icons – a boost to the quick learning curve for user to try out swipe capabilities. This aims to motivate, involve and immerse the user. Overall, the design is simple, useful and usable.
What steps did you take to come to your final design?
I conducted research into the target users: the insightful articles and research findings published by GSMA mWomen provided an in-depth understanding of the target users and existing gaps. I watched ‘Designing User Interfaces for Novice and Low-Literacy Users’ by Indrani Medhi and went through some of her research based on Text-Free User Interfaces. In order to understand use of iconography at entry level of learning, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPD) project is an example of a resourceful reference point. The guidelines for designing user interface for Android Jelly Bean were handy too.
As evident in many rural areas in developing markets, access to electricity is an infrastructural challenge. To charge their phones, users have to go to the nearest shopping centre and pay a fee. It was therefore important to look into means of designing for low power consumption in order to elongate residual battery capacity. A look at platforms that use shades of grey such as the Nook tablet was significant.
I also conducted user testing. Seven respondents were asked to interpret the icons. These were women with basic primary education who sell vegetables around my neighbourhood in the outskirts of Nairobi city. The plant nurturing metaphor (to denote tracking phone minutes, data usage and expenditure) was not tested.
What challenges did you overcome in the design process?
Arranging and positioning of the basic tasks and apps into tabs was a crucial step to overcome clutter and maintain as simplified homescreen. This is was important to reduce the complexity and number of steps needed to access features by making them readily available on the homescreen.
In order for the user to navigate and access pre-installed widgets, a swipe gesture was deemed useful. However, to assume that users will intuitively know how to use this swipe gesture feature without visual assistance would prove to be difficult. Hand icons were used to provide clues and fulfil this goal.
I was not very sure to what extent tracking phone minutes, data usage and expenditure can accurately be reflected – due to the assumption that the user may have to input some form of data (e.g. airtime in form of currency), unless the platform automatically connects to the service provider in the background to access, sync and present this information (even when different SIM cards are used on the same device or when different call rates are offered by a service provider during different times of the day). Due to this perceived complexity, I used an icon that represents nurturing metaphor. I thought this was a much natural approach as compared to using coin icons which can also be confusing: countries that have experienced high inflation rates may rarely use coins to purchase airtime due to the coins’ very low denomination value. In my assumption, it may be easier to reflect the tracking of phone minutes, data usage and expenditure using the plant metaphor especially where linear reflection of the usage status may not be accurate.
Consolidating appropriate context to meet the needs of target users but yet cut across the various cultural, economic, technical constraints, among others, was a challenging decision. According to reference sources, it was noted that users with low literacy levels were comfortable interacting with interfaces consisting of images and numbers but may find text-based labels intimidating. These users are comfortable using numbers due to the ability to count duration (time, days and months) and use currency. It became clear that text based interfaces should exclusively be used in messages and then offset by provision of voice features.
What does winning this award mean to you/your organisation?
I am excited and humbled to receive this prestigious award. It is a tremendous boost and encourages me to work harder in the field of user experience design. With still few practitioners in developing markets, it provides much needed publicity and helps raise my professional profile.
Winning in this category highlights the importance of focusing on the needs of women users at the bottom of the pyramid and emphasises the central role user experience plays in meeting these needs.
As a designer, it means taking a proactive initiative to further develop and bring the current design into reality.
How do you want to develop the design in the future?
Through a user centred design approach, user experience best practices and open innovation through co-creative collaboration with project members and key stakeholders. I believe this is an innovative approach and speeds time to market.
To begin with, this involves refining and extending current design concept. At the basic/abstract level, it entails working with wireframes to define, document and communicate end-to-end concepts with project members and key stakeholders through functional specifications, task flows, information design, interface design and iteration.
Rapid prototypes of the wireframes can then be constructed (e.g. using software such as Flowella) in order to facilitate on the ground user tests and obtain first hand feedback. This will be undertaken in small doses, depending on the various tasks and derived user goals. This is a critical step to identify fundamental design problems earlier in the design process. It is a learning experience from the design perspective which further helps to garner insight of the mental models of the target user – motivations and other deeper considerations that separate good experiences from the great ones.
Continuous iteration and on-the-ground user tests will have to be conducted to solidify the concept into a seamless user experience, to satisfy the user needs and add value.
‘Look and feel’ graphics can then be developed and tested as rapid prototypes with users on the ground, again in small doses, depending on the tasks and user goals. Appropriate steps will be taken to refine the visual design.
Finally, documentation of the user experience design guidelines (styles and mock-ups) will be a definitive step in handing out the design concept for implementation by Android developers. This also involves fleshing out the graphical elements. Communication with the development team is crucial to ensure consistent user experience and bringing it life.
Follow-up and involvement in the consequent pilot stage and user-evaluation phases will be essential in measuring the effectiveness of the working prototype with the target users before refinement and final release to the market.
Any other comments?
I really want to take this opportunity to thank GSMA mWomen and partners for this award and recognition. With user experience practice slowly gaining acceptance in Africa, this award motivates me to continue to pursue my passion in this field.