Fiona Lee and David Edelstein – Innovation in Information Access: Harnessing the Potential of the Mobile Phone
David Edelstein is the Director of the Grameen Technology Center (GTC) and the Vice President of Technology Programs at Grameen Foundation, an organization that provides the world’s poorest people with collateral-free banking services. Fiona Lee is the Africa Project Manager at Google. The two discussed how mobile technology can aid the poor by providing access to vital information and financial resources.
David asked us to put ourselves in the shoes of an African farmer. His cow and his crops are his savings and his livelihood. What happens if his plants die? What happens when his cow is stick? He many be able to depend on his neighbors, but without them he is stuck. He’s never seen a computer and gets his information from the radio — other communication technologies are nonexistent.
It’s challenging to access information in the developing world, but, as David noted, “the mobile phone today has the potential to level the playing field in terms of information access.” There are nearly 5 billion mobile phones worldwide, and 4 billion of those phones are in developing countries. There is often one phone per household, so the number of people impacted is even larger; the potential to reach a large percentage of population is huge. Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing in number of phones at a rate that is four times western world. What does it take to go from talking to getting information?
David’s team started with microfinance, because technology plays a vital role in microfinance. Partnering with MTN, a phone prominent African phone company, they created a network of 25,000 people.
The next step was putting phones in people’s hands. That’s where Fiona’s work at Google comes in. The three companies, as well as local partners, worked to help develop content and understand local context to meet the needs of people in Africa. Almost all phones in Africa have 12 keys — they aren’t the smartphones or high-end devices we are used to and the system needed to be entirely accessible via SMS.
The research and learning happened in the field — quite literally, sometimes; the team went wherever the locals went. The team assessed the communities’ information needs, analyzed economic and information flows, identified how information was accessed, defined the sources of this information, and rapidly prototyped and piloted on location.
Fiona noted that every product decision was based on extensive user research: the companies conducted 10 pilots with 8,000 people. One exercise zeroed in on sexual and reproductive health, agriculture and weather to fully understand the user experience, from when people first learn about the service to when they actually start entering queries to how they respond to Google SMS tips.
Three teams of three people each went to 17 locations and collected almost 300 queries. They asked people what questions they would ask through mobile phone using SMS. The query redirected to computers in Google office, with people at Google manually answering the questions. These questions included topics like, “I want to know when the rain comes in the week,” “Malaria prevention,” and “Banana weevils wilting plant.”
The pair then demonstrated a web simulator based on actual queries such as “How is malaria prevented?” Though the system quickly provides an answer, it takes a complex system to provide an accurate result based on a search query limited to 140 160 characters. Sometimes it’s necessary to return up to five SMS messages in order to return the proper information. The system also gives the user the chance to double click if they find the answer interesting, enabling the system and user to learn more.
The team’s rapid prototyping validated that mobile is a good delivery channel: it’s private, quick, and low-cost. People can use it as alternative to walking miles to a clinic or wait, directly from a source. Plus, MTN is a trustworthy brand. Helped in HIV awareness: text to find your local clinic.
In order for a project like this to succeed, researchers must learn from the user and be sensitive to cultural intricacies. David and Fiona remind us that technology is an enabler, not a solution.
Fiona advised: “Fail fast, screw up early, screw up often.” David added that we need to learn from actual behavior to predict future behavior: go to the user and stay there. If they can’t find it, how can they use it? Discoverability and usability are key, as well as finding community evangelists to teach others how to use the device.
[...] Google Africa project manager Fiona Lee spoke about how Google is investing in simple text messaging search technologies to help Africans learn more about health and sexuality. She showed a number of examples of how people can ask via mobile phone about transmitting AIDs, condom use and pregnancy and receive nearly instantaneous, accurate answers. She said, “Technology is not the be all and end all, it’s a starting point.” [...]