Abstract
Connecting people across the “digital divide” is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centred approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the digital divide. We have incorporated the lessons learned regarding social intelligence design in an abstraction and in a device called the SoftBridge. The SoftBridge allows communication to flow from endpoints through adapters, getting converted if necessary, and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two communities in South Africa: disadvantaged Deaf users and an isolated rural community. Initial lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay. We also learned that social concerns are often more important than the technical issues in designing such systems.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by many organizations and people, both fellow researchers and community members. Resources were provided by the NRF, the South African National Research Foundation through its THRIP and Focus Areas programmes, Telkom, Siemens SA and SANPAD, the South Africa --- Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development. The CSIR Information and Communications Technology Section introduced us to village of Tsilitwa and provided the WiFi infrastructure that we used. The NGO “Bridges.Org” acted as a consultant on the applicability of the work. DCCT also worked with us to facilitate the Deaf telephony project. Over the past 3 years, our students have provided many ideas and inspiration, in particular the authors would like to thank Mr John Lewis for developing some of the SoftBridge systems discussed, and Ms Marshini Chetty for developing MuTI and the tele-health research.
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Blake, E.H., Tucker, W.D. User interfaces for communication bridges across the digital divide. AI & Soc 20, 232–242 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-005-0018-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-005-0018-1