DESIGNING MOBILE INTERFACES FOR NOVICE AND LOW-LITERACY USERS

Chandler Sauers

MOBILE DEVICES ARE USED OUTSIDE OF FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES

ILLITERATE USERS VS ATM MACHINE

TEXT ONLY UI

RESULTS

0 out of 20 people succeeded. The users who couldn’t read were unable to

read the menu. Users who could read were unable to put

context to the words. No one was surprised.

VOICE ONLY INTERFACE

Tech support style voice commands and prompts.

The testing environment was “wizard-of-Oz” style, as to avoid any voice recognition problems.

The experimenter would play back recorded files over the phone.

RESULTS

13 out of 18 users succeeded 72% Average completion rate: 5.2 minutes.

GRAPHICAL UI

Menu based design. Voice instructions played on each screen Includes a tutorial video at the start. Tutorial video explained basics of banking.

RESULTS

20 out of 20 users succeeded 100% Average completion rate: 13 minutes.

INTERESTING FACTS

There was a gender impact on the results. 6/10 females and 7/8 males succeeded

using the voice UI. Female test subjects took twice as long to

complete the test. Both were concluded to be statistically

significant. No difference with the graphical UI

MORE FACTS

Users were faster and were more independent using the voice UI.

Using the graphical interface caused initial anxiety for novice users.

The UI felt more like a conversation. Some users already had experience with

voice UIs. Some users thought the voice UI was a real

person. Users said that the graphic UI helped them

picture banking better.

DESIGN TIPS

Provide graphical cues Provide voice annotation support Avoid nonnumeric text input Avoid scrolling Minimize soft-key mappings

SOURCE

http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1960000/1959024/p1-Medhi.pdf?ip=128.194.3.130&id=1959024&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=B63ACEF81C6334F5%2E79B51EFA2DE92FE8%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&CFID=589977779&CFTOKEN=92630858&__acm__=1414262974_8c47bca0d8138f50c21d976ae4e3eef5