ABSTRACT
CAM is a user interface toolkit that allows a camera-equipped mobile phone to interact with paper documents. It is designed to automate inefficient, paper-intensive information processes in the developing world. In this paper we present a usability evaluation of an application built using CAM for collecting data from microfinance groups in rural India. This application serves an important and immediate need in the microfinance industry. Our quantitative results show that the user interface is efficient, accurate and can quickly be learned by rural users. The results were competitive with an equivalent PC-based UI. Qualitatively, the interface was found easy to use by almost all users. This shows that, with a properly designed user interface, mobile phones can be a preferred platform for many rural computing applications. Voice feedback and numeric data entry were particularly well-received by users. We are conducting a pilot of this application with 400 microfinance groups in India.
- S. Brewster. Overcoming the lack of screen space on mobile computers. In Personal Ubiquitous Comput., Springer-Verlaf (2002), 6(3):188--205.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Grameen Phone home page. http://www.grameenphone.com, March 2005.]]Google Scholar
- S. Grisedale, M. Graves, and A. Grunsteidl. Designing a graphical user interface for healthcare workers in rural India. In Proc. CHI 1997, ACM Press (1997), 471--478.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- F. Guimbreti`ere. Paper augmented digital documents. In Proc. UIST 2003, ACM Press (2003), 51--60.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. M. Heiner, S. E. Hudson, and K. Tanaka. Linking and messaging from real paper in the paper PDA. In Proc. UIST 1999, ACM Press (1999), 179--186.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- IFP success stories, June 2003. http://www2.clearlake.ibm.com/GOV/ifp/ success stories.html.]]Google Scholar
- CGAP IT innovation series: PDAs in microfinance, June 2004. http://www.cgap.org/docs/IT pda.html.]]Google Scholar
- W. Johnson, H. Jellinek, J. Leigh Klotz, R. Rao, and S. K. Card. Bridging the paper and electronic worlds: the paper user interface. In Proc. CHI 1993, ACM Press (1993), 507--512.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Kam and T. Tran. Lessons from deploying the remote transaction system with three microfinance institutions in Uganda. In Proc. of the Berkeley-UNIDO Bridging the Divide Conference, April 2005.]]Google Scholar
- T. Kindberg. Implementing physical hyperlinks using ubiquitous identifier resolution. In Proc. WWW 2002, ACM Press (2002), 191--199.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. R. Klemmer, J. Graham, G. J. Wolff, and J. A. Landay. Books with voices: paper transcripts as a physical interface to oral histories. In Proc. CHI 2003, ACM Press (2003), 89--96.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- C. Lindholm, T. Keinonen, and H. Kiljander. Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone. McGraw-Hill, NY, NY, 2003.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- W. E. MacKay. Is paper safer? the role of paper flight strips in air traffic control. In ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., ACM Press (1999), 6(4):311--340.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. S. Parikh. Rural microfinance service delivery: Gaps, inefficiencies and emerging solutions. Submitted to ICTD 2006, May 2006.]]Google Scholar
- T. S. Parikh. Using mobile phones for secure, distributed document processing in the developing world. In IEEE Perv. Comp. Magazine, 4(2):74--81, April 2005.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. S. Parikh and K. Ghosh. Designing for intermediated information tasks in the developing world. Submitted to IEEE Pervasive Computing, April 2006.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. S. Parikh, K. Ghosh, and A. Chavan. Design studies for a financial management system for micro-credit groups in rural India. In Proc. CUU 2003, ACM Press (2003), 15--22.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- The real digital divide. The Economist, Mar. 2005.]]Google Scholar
- J. Rekimoto and K. Nagao. The world through the computer: Computer augmented interaction with real world environments. In Proc. UIST 1995, ACM Press (1995), 29--36.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Rohs. Visual code widgets for marker-based interaction. In Proc. IWSAWC'05: ICDCS 2005 Workshops, June 2005.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Rohs and B. Gfeller. Using camera-equipped mobile phones for interacting with real-world objects. In Advances in Pervasive Computing, Austrian Computing Society (2004), 265--271.]]Google Scholar
- M. Rohs and P. Zweifel. A conceptual framework for camera phone-based interaction techniques. In Proc. Pervasive 2005, Springer-Verlag(2005).]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. J. Sellen and R. H. Harper. The Myth of the Paperless Office. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Simkin language, May 2005. http://www.simkin.co.uk/.]]Google Scholar
- E. Toye, R. Sharp, A. Madhavapeddy, and D. Scott. Using smart phones to access site-specific services. IEEE Perv. Comp. Magazine, 4(2):60--66, April 2005.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. Wellner. Interacting with paper on the DigitalDesk. Communications of the ACM, 36(7):86--97, 1993.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Mobile phones and paper documents: evaluating a new approach for capturing microfinance data in rural India
Recommendations
Designing an architecture for delivering mobile information services to the rural developing world
WWW '06: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on World Wide WebImplementing successful rural computing applications requires addressing a number of significant challenges. Recent advances in mobile phone computing capabilities make this device a likely candidate to address the client hardware constraints. Long ...
Using Mobile Phones for Secure, Distributed Document Processing in the Developing World
Although paper plays an essential role in many information ecologies in the developing world, paper-based record keeping can be inefficient and inflexible. The CAM document-processing framework, so called because the phoneýs built-in digital camera ...
Information and communication technology and the sustainability of microfinance
Information and communication technology (ICT) is an important driver in the maturing microfinance industry. Microfinance providers, both non-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) and for-profit banks, provide financial services to the poor that are ...
Comments