Interview: Erik Hersman (WhiteAfrican.com)

Erik Hersman is the Cornucopia of compelling Africa-oriented web content. He has offered insightful anecdotes and perspectives on the place "where Africa and technology collide" for years (quote from Erik's blog).

He has experience in Web strategy as a technologist, and experience with the juxtaposition of "developed" and "developing" regions--as a past or present resident in both.

This combination makes him an ideal spokesman for The UI Thread's ongoing inquiry into the 'how' and 'why' of Bespoke UI for Developing Regions.

Erik was kind enough to answer our questions over email, offering a tenured voice and interesting perspective.

Interview with Erik Hersman

UIT - The topic has to do with the current state of affairs of 'home grown' User
Interfaces for Africa. Everyone knows there's lots of hype around mobile these
days...but there are surprisingly few stories about local African innovation
with mobile systems.

We are trying to assess the need for more attention being given to 'home grown' solutions. E.g., are 'Western' systems sufficient for the largest anticipated user base in the world??

We've read some discussions on your blog about a similar topic (i.e. web
development coming out of Africa).

As a Web Technologist, how do you cope with the fact that less than 4% of Africans have Internet access?

Erik - I see this as a starting point. It’s not as if that percentage is ever going to decrease, we’ll continue to see greater adoption. We have to think of the future with a long-term perspective on integration into everyday African’s lives.

We also have to weigh the value of traditional computer-based internet access versus mobile forms. As more developers think creatively on how to get information and data to the mass amounts of mobile users in Africa, the need for internet access via computer will decrease for certain functions. I think there is a huge area of growth that is lying virtually untapped in the mobile market right now.

At the same time, I think we need to distance ourselves from the thought process of mobile versus PC. We’re basically talking about data flow and personal interactivity. Creating applications and services that work equally well on both platforms is where we should be placing our focus.

UIT - Who is better suited to develop interactive systems for Africa: Africans or non-Africans? Why?

Erik - Africans generally speaking, or if non-Africans, then ones that have lived significantly long enough in Africa so that they can understand the cultural nuances. This goes across Africa too, there’s no one “right way” for all of Africa. It’s too diverse.

Though there are many features and standardized practices found around the world, I still wouldn’t expect to see too many of the top web apps in the US built by people not from the US. This applies to Africa as well. Indigenous people, whether in Europe, the US or Africa, have a better handle on their culture and what types of services and features are needed.

UIT - Do you think "Western" developed software should be localized for African users beyond language, or is translation enough? (E.g. McDonald's doesn't only simply translate their menu, they adapt their food offerings to be culturally sensitive.)

Erik - It looks like I jumped ahead and answered this question in the one above. Basically, translation is not enough. There are certain platform features that can be standardized across cultures, but thought has to be given to cultural norms and sensitivities when the detail work is being put into an application.

UIT - When do you think Africans will shift from primarily SMS based systems to richer interactivity offered by e.g. Java or mobile web browsers?

Erik - Interesting question, and one that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I don’t have a source to back it up, but I was at a conference this summer in Kenya where a couple people mentioned that the penetration of Java enabled mobile phones in Africa was around 30%.

That’s not critical mass by any means, but I believe it’s a trend. We’ll continue to see the use of SMS as the primary means of communication, but as more companies build rich Java applications that are actually useful and save people time and/or money, the number of adopters will increase.

So, if I’m making a mobile phone application for Africa starting today, I would seriously think about making it a Java app.

However, something that needs to be discussed is the level of service and bandwidth capabilities for data on the mobile phone networks right now. In some countries there are some serious limitations in that area.

UIT - Given unlimited resources, which single technology would you deploy alongside or within mobile phones and why?

Erik - This is the part where I get to dream right?  Okay, I would build a Java-based application that decreases communication costs and provides for greater interactivity than is generally available through SMS-only phones. I would likely use an open-source solution that allows for lower cost initial outlay and scalability.

UIT - Which features on your current mobile phone would likely need adaptations if to be used by the "masses" in, e.g., Nairobi, Kenya?

Erik - I use an iPhone, so that’s a bit harder to answer. It doesn’t have some of the features that I’d really like it to have, like the ability to load 3rd party applications.

UIT - What are the 3 biggest road blocks encountered when trying to innovate from a typical developer or designer in Africa?

Erik -

• Funding – everything tends to be done out of the developers pockets on their own time. Few non-Africans will fund any African technology initiative, incorrectly thinking that it’s too risky and that it wouldn’t make enough money. Too few wealthy Africans will fund projects like this either, or if they do, the developer is left with no meaningful equity.

• “Old Boys Club” – young innovators come along all the time. Many of them smash into the opposition of some entrenched bureaucrat or Big Co. executive who knows the right people and squashes the innovation. Or, more likely, the big company ends up stealing the idea and making the money while the young innovator gets nothing.

• Bandwidth – as more and more development projects deal with data flowing across the web and mobile networks, there is a real need to increase the bandwidth provided in most African countries. Any real popular mobile phone application that requires data to flow constantly could quickly run up against a bandwidth wall that is not quickly overcome.

UIT - How do you think developers, designers, etc., can best help non-literate "users" of ICT in Africa?

Erik - For any text-based application on a mobile phone, you have to have some type of literacy. As user-friendly as you can make the device’s interface, people still need to be able to communicate using it. If they’re communicating primarily via text, then a basic requirement is that they need to be able to read at a certain level.

However, there are still some ways around the traditional text user-interface that could be done. Use of icons and voice could open up some communications areas that allow a broader audience to participate.

Follow-up message from UIT:

We thank Erik for shedding light on the under-explored domain of interactive systems in Africa. We appreciate Erik's sensitivity to segmentation within the African market. Africa is hugely diverse, and different people will find different information useful through different delivery mechanisms. This will definitely drive innovation in delivering culturally and regionally accessible information services and applications.

The UI Thread team has synthesized a simple Venn diagram illustrating an important concept of technology harmonization. Such harmonization, when developing services and applications for Emerging Markets, is critical to mobile information accessibility. The UI Thread will introduce more thoughts on harmonization later, but for now, here's the simple Venn diagram:



For more on Erik Hersman, the Cornucopia of compelling content, we highly recommend you visit whiteafrican.com or afrigadget.com or any other one of Erik Hersman's other sites.

Interview: Erik Pukinskis (OLPC, AbiWord)

Erik Pukinskis is currently a PhD student in the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Lab in the Cognitive Science department at the University of California in San Diego.

He previously had an opportunity to work on the interface of an ambitious project: One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).

His focus was on re-working the user interface of the open-source word processor, AbiWord, with the tagline, "Word Processing for Everyone."

"Write" was the derivative application, aimed at introducing school children in developing regions to perhaps their first-ever word processing experience.

Interview with Erik Pukinskis

UIT - Hi Erik.

The UI Thread is most interested in your experiences relating to the challenges you faced re-designing a UI for such a diverse group of users.

AbiWord is an AbiSource project known for its cross-platform functionality, portability and localization potential. In you opinion, why was AbiWord the best editor for the job?

Erik - I don't know all of the reasons why OLPC chose AbiWord, but I can make some guesses. It's small and light, which is important given the XO has very little storage space and processing power. I think there was already some inertia towards using GTK for OLPC software. And RedHat was doing the software, and their engineers are very familiar with GNOME technologies.

UIT - How well do you think AbiWord would have served the needs of the target-users had no thought been given to re-designing the UI?

Erik - You know, I wonder about this. A lot of work is going into redesigning these apps for what we think the target kids will need, but no one is really researching how the kids live, and even if they did, no one can predict what they'll do with the machines. Sometimes I think they should just throw Ubuntu on there and let the kids figure it out. Children are just bursting with ingenuity.

That said, there's great potential for harm. The laptops might cause serious social problems. It's just impossible to predict. As my friend Lilly smartly asked, "Could it be the new skolt lapp parable?"

UIT - How did you go about discovering and defining your individual target-user groups?

Erik - I basically read the press releases coming out of OLPC and RedHat and everyone, and then I pecked at Chris Blizzard for as many details about the rollout plan as I could.

UIT - The target-users you were designing for were very far away, and very dispersed. How did you address that challenge and inform your design with useful data?

Erik - I went to people who know more than me. I got some good guidance from a professor of mine, Eden Medina, who has has a lot of knowledge about South America. And I interviewed professors at the University I was at (Indiana University) who were knowledgeable about Brazil and Nigeria and other launch countries and had visited or lived in those countries.

It was really wonderful, talking to people who could say "this is what school is like for these kids" and who knew, because they had been there and lived it.

UIT - What were the top 5 design modifications needed for AbiWord?

Erik - It's hard to say what was "needed". I had some ideas of what I thought would be a good place to start... making it usable by people who can't read was a big one. Getting it to work on a small screen was another one. Trying to make it engaging for kids was probably a third. As for four and five... well, you can only have so many design goals. :)

UIT - Can you tell us about any opportunities you had for user research or user testing before, during, or after the design process?

Erik - I'm sort of embarrassed to say it, but I didn't do any user testing! It's not easy getting access to kids to do user testing. And I was traveling while working that summer, so I was mostly limited to desk work.

UIT - Given you experience with OLPC, what would you recommend to a UI designer embarking on a multi-national UI design for developing regions?

Erik - If I were doing it, I'd try to get volunteers from lots of different countries who know what the target environment is like, and can do user testing. If you do iterative design with a team like that, I'd think a good result would be almost inevitable.

UIT - The Sugar UI is very unique. How did it influence you during your design process?

Erik - I spent a good deal of time just figuring out how to conform to their design ideas, which was a little different than previous design projects. In school, you have massive amounts of freedom, and you're trying to design something very forward-looking. In this case, I was just trying to help AbiWord fit in.

UIT - Which aspects of your background and education do you felt you drew on most while working on the re-design?

Erik - My skills in user research and prototyping from design school came in useful. And I certainly had to draw on programming experience from my Computer Science undergraduate days.

UIT - Overall, how did you find the project and what would you do differently given the chance?

Erik - It was a great project! I don't think I'd do anything differently if I could go back, because that was who I was, and I like who I am now... but if I were to do a similar project again, I would focus much more on working with children. I'd make finding children for user testing my first priority and try to do iterative design with them. Iterations make the world go round.

UIT - Our compliments to you for working on such an interesting project! Thanks again for your time.

Erik - Thanks for your interest!

Follow-up message from UIT:

Erik's suggestion of engaging end-users more for future projects is a wonderful idea. Sometimes this can cost a lot of money and Free/Open Source Software projects usually don't have a lot.

However, creative designers should be able to find affordable means. In fact, something tells us children would participate for lollipops.

We at the UI Thread care a great deal for F/OSS in general--especially projects aimed at bridging the so-called "Digital Divide." However, despite the best of intentions, it seems that Open Source initiatives are still lagging behind private-market firms when it comes to enunciating the mantras of user-centered design.

Hopefully with more people like Erik Pukinskis getting involved, this will change. After all, F/OSS is about community design and development. Projects such as Ubuntu seem to be on the right track.

"Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world." - (ubuntu.com)

So we at The UI Thread put forth a call to action for those wishing to develop interactive-systems on shoe-string budgets:

Embody "OpenUCD." Find ways to follow UCD methodologies the best you can.

Ask for help if you feel you need it.
(e.g. http://groups.google.com/group/openucd)

For more on Erik Pukinskis' initiatives, visit his blog SnowedIn.net.

Interview: Ken Banks (FrontlineSMS)

The Friday, 20 April 2007 BBC News headline read:

"Texts monitor Nigerian elections"

"Anyone trying to rig or tamper with Saturday's presidential elections in Nigeria could be caught out by a team of volunteers armed with mobile phones."

"NMEM is using a free system called Frontline SMS, developed by programmer Ken Banks, to keep track of all of the texts." (source)

We at The UI Thread came across Ken's story, and FrontlineSMS, at ShareIdeas.org. (The website is dedicated to 'positive' uses of mobile technology.)

After learning more about Ken's application--which has enabled numerous organizations' communicative robustness--we took an opportunity to inquire about its history and User Interface.

Ken was kind enough to engage in an email-based interview over a period of a couple of weeks. (We hope to talk in person some time!)

Interview with Ken Banks:

UIT - How are people finding out about this application and how to use it?

Ken - "When FrontlineSMS was released to the world towards the end of 2005, I had no marketing plan (or experience), and hardly any contacts who could help promote it (and no money). So initially it was just graft getting it discussed on news sites and blogs. One of the breakthrough contacts was Mike Grenville at 160Characters, who put news of its release in his newsletter (it is widely distributed). Other than that, news about the software has been entirely viral. I must confess to being a pain in the butt (but in a proactive way!) by not letting a single opportunity go by where I felt I could shout about it. It’s now been picked up and reported on in a number of reports (such as the MobileActive series), another time in a Gates Foundation report, and more recently in an as-yet unpublished paper from Acumen Fund. There are actually more Google hits for “FrontlineSMS” than there are for “kiwanja.net”, which is interesting. In terms of finding out how to use it, the website is clear on set up and configuration issues (the fact I get so few technical support questions is proof to me of how clear it is). The software has a built-in HTML help system, but it’s intuitive enough, I believe, for most people to be able to start using it quite quickly. The screens generally have a ‘flow’ about them, and being a user myself, and having spent a lot of time with colleagues in developing countries and knowing a little bit about how they got on with computers (I trained some of the Nigerian staff while I was working at a primate sanctuary there – two years before I wrote FrontlineSMS). Again, I have not heard of any issues in usability"


UIT - How do people perceive FrontlineSMS in terms of a new system they weren't exposed to?

Ken - "FrontlineSMS has been received so incredibly well I think in part down to the project’s aims and objectives, and the overall work ethic (i.e. trying to empower, not dictate, and free software and free support, and a genuine interest in the work of non-profits and what they’re trying to achieve, and experience working where they work in many cases). I think this, above everything, has been a major factor in the contacts I’ve been getting, and the requests to use the software. The general vibe of the project stands above the software itself, in a way (does that make sense?). So, when users get hold of FrontlineSMS they are already excited and captivated by it. I get numerous mails telling me how great it is and thanking me for developing it BEFORE the users even get to use it. So, when they are finally exposed to it I think they’re just grateful for it being there for them, and none have made any critical comments or suggestions on how it can be improved. This may be in part to their lack of knowing what to expect. Also, mobile is such an exciting area for most people, many are just grateful for being able to do something in the space"


UIT - In terms of FrontlineSMS usage for the Nigerian elections, which environmental conditions made FrontlineSMS an attractive choice for users?

Ken - "I think, for the Nigerians, it was attractive because it was “written for them” in the sense of the NGO approach (so there were no concerns about being taken for a ride financially), and that it’s use in developing countries has been widely reported. It was also quite likely the only solution out there for them (I don’t know of anything else which quite does was FrontlineSMS does, although I may be wrong). The Nigerians had a minimal budget, little experience of setting up a telecoms service, and little time. They wouldn’t have known how to deal with their local operators to get short codes, for example, and there would have been big time and cost implications for them. Also, having the software run on a local machine, rather than being web-based, meant that they had a sense of “ownership” of it, I suspect. You know, it’s their system and their data and their effort. I think that, more widely speaking, this sense of ownership is a key element in ICT software development when you talk about it in a developing country context. At the end of the day, I think people just “get” FrontlineSMS – you know, the whole thing about putting software on THAT laptop and then connecting A phone to it. It’s a very visual solution"


UIT - What were the alternatives to completing the task FrontlineSMS was used for in Nigeria?

Ken - "As I mentioned, I don’t think there’s really much else out there. The NMEM team could have maybe gone to an operator and tried to get a deal with an access number, or a short code or something. They could have also perhaps just tried to use a smarter phone, and tried to save the messages somewhere (this would have been difficult with 10,000+ replies). They may have also looked at some of the commercial systems out there. I think their situation conspired against them in all these cases – particularly in terms of the technical and financial challenges it would have created"


UIT - When designing FrontlineSMS, how did you explore cultural and regional considerations for the User Interface (e.g. if you knew many people in developing regions would be using it)?

Ken - "In short, I didn't have time to do any of that. I've developed a number of systems before, and generally have a good grasp of what users like and don't like. So FrontlineSMS has no hugely thought-out UI design, although I have received positive comments on the whole, and no-one has experienced problems in using it. 2.0 will have multi-language support"


UIT - In general, how did you go about designing the User Interface? ( E.g. did you apply any design heuristics, usability methods or leverage any ethnographic data?)

Ken - "As mentioned above, I didn't plan it too much. I only had 5 weeks to develop it, so there wasn't a lot of lead time. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, though! =) "


UIT - Will the forthcoming version of FrontlineSMS include any substantial changes at the GUI level, or user interactions? If so, what elicited the changes?

Ken - "I do not anticipate too many changes in the UI in the new version, since there doesn’t seem to be a call for any. A couple of things I have picked up on need doing, such as moving the phone settings from a main screen into a menu somewhere, but there really isn’t much. To be honest, a lot of the current screen design only turned out the way it did because it was the only way I could make everything fit. In the first version I wanted to give the user everything they needed at once, rather than expect them to find a configuration menu somewhere else. From my experience of users in developing countries, not being able to configure the phone, for example, on the same screen as the messages are sent, would be counter-intuitive. The screens are being built in the new version in such a way that they can be changed easily – the open source community will be free to do any of this – and the screen text will be held in central files to allow for the support of multiple languages in the future"


UIT - SMS is the killer app in Africa. When will that change?

Ken - "The Mobile Web will probably change that, but SMS will always have a place in the mobile universe. Handsets in developing countries – rural areas in particular - won't be able to handle anything other than SMS as data for another few years, is my guess. Read my http://www.blogspot.kiwanja.net/2007/09/digital-divider.html for a better review"


UIT - Why will that change?

Ken - "SMS has obvious limitations (message length, literacy issues, cost – it's very expensive if you think about the actual amount of data being sent). There are others but I'll need to think a little more…"


Follow-up message from UIT:

As UI-oriented people, we're obligated to hold UI methodologies in high esteem. However, UI design is not simply GUI design--a common oversight.

Effective UI designers know the importance of User-Centered Design (UCD) and wouldn't be worth their screen-flows without it.

Ken Banks and FrontlineSMS exist in the exciting and evolving domain of social-driven mobile applications. (We've coined an aspect of this domain "OpenUCD" which identifies a need for User-Centered Design in F/OSS, as much as the practice of it.)

FrontlineSMS goes beyond effective GUI because it, as an interactive system, is backed by substantial user research, understanding and a consumer-targeted approach. Evidenced by Ken's responses to our questions, this mobile interactive system is a product of ad-hoc ethnography as much as rapid-prototyping.

In fact, perhaps without realizing it, Ken has done a commendable job at UCD by making UI choices in response to actual user needs. For that he has been rewarded (by the rapid uptake of his application).

Our praise of Ken's work, however, is balanced by the recognition that many social-oriented projects may not have the good fortune of in-depth user research or domain expertise.

So we at The UI Thread put forth a call to action for those wishing to develop interactive-systems on shoe-string budgets:

Embody "OpenUCD." Find ways to follow UCD methodologies the best you can.

Ask for help if you feel you need it.
(e.g. http://groups.google.com/group/openucd)

For more on Ken Banks' initiatives, and FrontlineSMS, please visit Ken's website Kiwanja.net.

Learn about his background and experiences at this ShareIdeas.org Webinar.

Thanks Ken!

- UIT