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This paper explores the use of conversational speech question and answer systems in the challenging context of public spaces in slums. A major part of this work is a comparison of the source and speed of the given responses; that is, either machine-powered and instant or human-powered and delayed. We examine these dimensions via a two-stage, multi-sited deployment. We report on a pilot deployment that helped refine the system, and a second deployment involving the installation of nine of each type of system within a large Mumbai slum for a 40-day period, resulting in over 12,000 queries. We present the findings from a detailed analysis and comparison of the two question-answer corpora; discuss how these insights might help improve machine-powered smart speakers; and, highlight the potential benefits of multi-sited public speech installations within slum environments. CCS CONCEPTS• Information systems → Speech / audio search; • Humancentered computing → Field studies; Interaction paradigms; Sound-based input / output; Interaction techniques.

We reflect on long trials of two prototype social media systems in rural South Africa and their biases towards certain communication practices on information sharing. We designed the systems to assist people in low-income communities to share locally relevant information. Both involve communal displays, to record, store and share media, and users can transfer media between the display and their cell-phones. MXShare, which we report for the first time, also enables real-time, text-based chat but AR enables sharing only audio files asynchronously. Both systems were located at the same sites for community communication and co-present oral practices effected media recording and sharing. Their use reinforced differentiations in sharing information between older and younger people. We argue that designing social media systems to widen information access must respond to complex interactions between social structures and genres of communication.

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