Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal settlement

Abstract

Living in informality is challenging. It is even harder when you have a mobility impairment. Traditional assistive products such as wheelchairs are essential to enable people to travel. Wheelchairs are considered a Human Right. However, they are difficult to access. On the other hand, mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous and are increasingly seen as an assistive technology. Should therefore a mobile phone be considered a Human Right? To help understand the role of the mobile phone in contrast of a more traditional assistive technology -the wheelchair, we conducted contextual interviews with eight mobility impaired people who live in Kibera, a large informal settlement in Nairobi. Our findings show mobile phones act as an accessibility bridge when physical accessibility becomes too challenging. We explore our findings from two perspective -human infrastructure and interdependence, contributing an understanding of the role supported interactions play in enabling both the wheelchair and the mobile phone to be used. This further demonstrates the critical nature of designing for context and understanding the social fabric that characterizes informal settlements. It is this social fabric which enables the technology to be useable.

Challenges and Strategies for Accessibility Research in the Global South: A Panel Discussion

“…Projects looking to take advantage of new materials and manufacturing methods to develop more flexible and accessible service delivery models for AT [4] 2. Projects investigating how the use of mobile phone can help to promote disability inclusion and bridge physical accessibility barriers [2,3] 3. Projects looking at leveraging different forms of media to promote positive images of people with disabilities [27] In my opening statement, I will bring up some point of discussion for the panel including challenges and strategies for the creation of partnerships with local organizations, managing the recruitment of participants and adapting research methods to cope with the challenges emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…These can have little in common with the experiences of persons with disabilities in the Global North where infrastructure is more established and social norms different. For example, studies on how people with and without disabilities in the Global South use mobile phones in everyday lives identified how a complex network of human infrastructure enables users to bridge gaps linked to limited digital fluency, handset limitations, or inaccessible designs [2,3,11].…”

Disability design and innovation in computing research in low resource settings

“…To build a better understanding of how people with different disabilities who live in informal settlements interact with their mobile phones in their daily lives, we organized four studies that engage people with visual, mobility, hearing and learning impairments, respectively. To date, only the first two studies involving people with visual and mobility impairment have been conducted [33,44]. Both studies involved semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations.…”

“Give Us the Chance to Be Part of You, We Want Our Voices to Be Heard”: Assistive Technology as a Mediator of Participation in (Formal and Informal) Citizenship Activities for Persons with Disabilities Who Are Slum Dwellers in Freetown, Sierra Leone

“…The handful of studies which have investigated AT provision in informal settlements. have tended to focus on specific groups or technologies—for instance, how blind and partially sighted people navigate in informal settlements [ 7 ]; how wheelchair users overcome physical access barriers in informal settlement with mobile phones [ 24 ]; and the impact of low-cost AT-solutions for individuals with spinal cord injuries (in this case, in Bangladesh) [ 25 ]. These studies largely focused on understanding how persons with disabilities living in informal settlements leverage AT to tackle fundamental everyday activities.…”