I decided to create a webpage for my WWHWI Project 5 presentation: https://koshabwwhwi.my.canva.site/

My intervention is set to determine what kind of design does the user respond best to, it starts out by asking the users a few questions to get the initial thoughts and views of the users, then showing them a few interfaces having them chose one from each section and give reasoning as to why, this is also known as A/B testing where even minute differences in the interfaces, with the help of user testing, determine which one works best. The final part of the intervention is where the user would navigate through an interface while they’re actions are observed and recorded.

Currently I have tested one intervention with one person from the target user base, and going ahead I do have a clear plan about the intervention going ahead. I also have a second intervention in mind, where I have the users make the interfaces via drawing.

We had a class activity of going to the library and picking up a book which had nothing to do with your topic and co-relating it to your project 4 topic. “inequality by design”, talked about economic inequalities between rich and poor groups, and it actually did relate a little to my topic, as it has to do with wanting to create equalities when it comes to interfaces. Overall it was a fun activity and I got to learn more about the library.

To get a more better understanding of the subject, I decided to read more about it. I decided to read an academic paper by Association for Computing Machinery, titled “User experience design for older adults: experience architecture and methodology for users aged 60+”, by Allegra W. Smith, Purdue University. It explained that it is important to understand the older adult’s needs prior to the design process. The understanding can better facilitate design conversations between the researchers and the older adults.

“Even in an age of user-centered design, some user communities and populations are still often perceived as technologically illiterate or deficient, due to prevailing misconceptions about their computer and internet use”, this statement reassured me about the fact that I was going in the right direction, as this was the assumption I had started this project with. “The goal of this work was to identify the digital tools that members of this community were adopting (or not) and why, what barriers interfered with their use of these tools, and how they articulated digital interfaces as contributing to (or hindering) their lives as individuals and community members from a variety of perspectives (personal, professional, civic, intellectual, cultural, etc)”.

Another academic article I looked at was, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Some Thoughts from the Generation Gap” by Timothy VanSlyke at the University of North Carolina. Digital Natives are today’s tech users, they are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multitask. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. 

In contrast, those not born in the digital world reveal their non-native status through a “digital immigrant accent” that manifests itself in a number of ways. The native/immigrant analogy can help us understand the differences between those who are comfortable with technology and those who are not.

References:

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants:

Some Thoughts from the Generation Gap by Timothy VanSlyke http://technologysource.org/article/digital_natives_digital_immigrants/

User experience design for older adults: experience architecture and methodology for users aged 60+ https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3328020.3353952?casa_token=couev-FG6UEAAAAA:O9mkFo9MNvotA0dWaSECPhLDUkkFYvFQDxzHUmrj2XilvKZT-wWVlgxygbMqLNs2qMTx96xDX0iu6AU

As when I first started this project I was back home in India for Easter break, I was focused on the Project from a narrow angle, to go ahead with the project from a more broad angle, thus I decided to focus not just on the indian population, and include a wider audience. Thus the topic evolved from:

How can we make UX design better for lower income/less educated groups in India? 

To

How can we make UX design more accessible/ inclusive for different age groups?

Accessibility is the practice of making information, activities, and/or environments sensible, meaningful, and usable for as many people as possible.

To get a more better understanding of the subject, I decided to read more about it. As UX design is a fairly new field, it’s practices are not yet practised everywhere, as the focus of designers has been on functionality rather the experience that the user has. A lot of new tech has been coming up lately, where as about 25-30 years ago there were no smart phones, thus there a generation gap when it comes to this tech, which causes problems in usability.

We were supposed to create a map for our Project journey in class, as I was still not sure where to go with my project just yet, thus I created the Map to represent the direction that I do want to go in ahead in.

Project 4/B started out as a way for us to explore an area, discipline, professional arena or other context in which we would like to introduce change in. I began to brainstorm about ideas and areas which interest me, and started to think about topics such as money, art, education, the digital world etc. As I started to think about a topic which was inclusive for all, I arrived at the word “Empathy”. Empathy is the ability to emotionally engage with other’s thoughts, feelings and well being.

I decided to focus on “everyday objects” and people who use them. I started thinking about this with my home, India in particular, with respect to lower income, illiterate and disabled people, about a quarter of the whole country’s population is still not educated, while these numbers are steadily decreasing, yet is being hindered due to factors like wage disparities, gender discrimination, and technological barriers. The government has also digitized the process and application of various documents such as passports, drivers license, and unique identification cards. I was aware of how difficult it was to navigate the website as I had tried it myself, that made me wonder about how people from other backgrounds find their experience to be like? As a beginning point I decided to look into various such different websites and applications and to understand their navigation and usage, and moreover the guidelines which are used to make them. I looked at a report by McKinsey which spoke about the challenges being faced by India in the digital field, which highlighted the issues that need to be looked at when catering to such a vast audience.

Stakeholders:  

The stakeholders in this project would be the users and the designers in this case. To delve more into this, I decided to interview both stakeholders of this issue in my opinion. I decided to interview two househelp employees from my apartment complex, two UX designers who are currently working. Both the househelp employees Daksha and Mohan, had one thing in common, that neither of them were able to finish their schooling, due to financial and personal reasons. When asked about how well they were able to navigate through digital platforms, they also had difficulty navigating quite a few of them. When I asked them about their use of the government applications they said instead of using the applications themselves they would rather have someone else do it, or do paperwork manually at the government offices. 

I was able to get a more deeper insight into this as I spoke to the designers, Poorva and Preksha are both currently working at two firms as UX design. The phrase which was most highlighted during my conversation with them was, “were not designed to cater to these groups”, the applications were designed to be a means to an end instead of creating a more full-filled user experience. The accessibility element in most of these applications is still lacking which does end up creating a divide. The other element which they both emphasized on was assistance, where assistance is necessary when catering to such a broad audience, and keeping in mind these niche groups while looking at the big picture. 

The Change:

The change in this project is a little challenging to come up with as the audience in this case is very broad, and applications are built and run by large corporations. The creation of the actual change in this project can be quite expensive economically, and will go through a lot of red-tape for it to be created. The main solution in this case would be to explore more ways of ensuring a better user experience, such as creating specific structured guidelines to ensure inclusivity of all these groups, a better research journey with each of these specific groups to know their needs, environments, their patterns etc. 

The solution will aim to understand the users better and anticipate their needs. As I have already conducted interviews with the two stakeholders of this issue, my next course of action would be to conduct an intervention to pin-point issues that need to be solved when looking at this problem. I am also considering conducting a survey to get more diverse view-points on this issue.