Visualising and systematizing a per-poor ICT intervention for Rural and Semi-urban Mothers in India

Abstract

This paper presents an Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) intervention through a novel audio assisted mobile application, designed for low literate mothers in rural and sub-urban parts of Assam in India. It explores new methods to enhance the usability of ICTs by adopting the perpoor or grassroots level innovation model which facilitates the poor to innovate for themselves through their interpretation of existing technologies. Systematically harvesting grassroots innovation is gaining momentum and attracting ICT interventions due to the increasing availability of low cost personalized mobile phones. Following a user centred design approach, we designed an audio-visual based application for the Nokia 6303. This would impart maternal health care information to low literate mothers and provide them with easier access to government health care facilities. Our research and field work involved 24 participants and investigated new modes of disseminating maternal health care information without disrupting the existing government health care system. We explored usage of Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGAs) to redefine our layout from scratch and compared two methods of representing graphics-metaphorical icons and realistic visuals, observing significant preference for the latter. We found that grid based menu icons in small screen interfaces were more adaptable than a list based menu. To consolidate and validate the design proposed by us, we qualitatively tested a high fidelity prototype with 8 fresh participants. Our findings provide a possible systematic set of considerations that can be taken prior to realizing per-poor innovation in future ICT4Ds.

Syrian Refugees and Digital Health in Lebanon

“…Previous work on the design of digital maternal health in India has mostly targeted women with only access to feature phones [2,18,19,24,33]. However, our findings indicate a high penetration of smartphones among Syrian refugees in rural Lebanon.…”

“…Additional systems have been designed to support social workers in identifying high risk pregnancies, including a mobile phone application that allows data collection, such as registration information for new cases, and follow-up meetings between social workers and women in rural areas [2]. Such designs have generally focused on supporting social workers to prioritize clients and the advice needed on how to proceed with the patient's care [2,21,33]. However, existing systems have largely focused on the perceived needs of healthcare workers.…”

“…There has been success in linking healthcare providers to patients in Kenya, where the system allows for nurses to respond to text messages sent by women [27]. Likewise, models similar to those that use voice based technologies for health in rural India [18,33] should be explored; and extended to take account of the women's preference for the use of WhatsApp voice notes.…”

“…A number of women emphasized their enthusiasm for using mobile phones to develop a loosely coupled integration with PHCs that would facilitate an appointment system. Such an approach would deviate from previous designs that focus on management and control by social and healthcare workers [2,18,21,24,29,33]. Likewise, in a manner similar to the use of digital storytelling to advocate for Palestinian youth [39], there is real potential for digital platforms to have a dual role in sharing the experiences of women among themselves and documenting the experiences for the purposes of health advocacy.…”

Towards Enhancing Everyday Pregnancy Care

“…The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is creating opportunities to support community based pregnancy care in India [2,5,6,9]. However, large existing ICT-driven interventions have not focused on accounting for how community everyday settings and households influence pregnancy care.…”