Participatory Approach in the Development of Usable ICTs for Remote and Rural Communities

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UNESCAP) estimates that more than 450,000 telecentres are needed to accommodate the ICT access needs in the Asia Pacific Region. These telecentres, in turn, provide opportunities to improve the socio-economic status of target remote and rural communities. In addition, these telecentres require software which are usable and relevant to the needs of the target community. However, at present these software applications are being built using software development methodologies which were developed and used in urban settings, and not rural ones. Given the many differences between the rural and urban audience, a more appropriate software development methodology, the Participatory action Research in Software Methodology Augmentation (PRISMA) , is proposed. Comparisons will be drawn between PRISMA and the User Centred Design approach. In addition, further discussion of the research will be made within the context of human-computer interaction and Social Informatics, an important but largely neglected field in Malaysia.

Biodata

Dr. Alvin Yeo is the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS Sarawak). He has expertise in the area of Information and Communications Technology for Rural Development (ICT4RD). Alvin has published in The Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with ICT, evaluated Malaysian federal-funded ICT4RD initiatives, and worked with United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UNESCAP). Alvin has been involved in the eBario Project which garnered numerous awards including the Commonwealth CAPAM Innovation award which beat 112 international submissions worldwide. His current ICT4RD research encompasses a community-centred software development methodology which incorporates participatory action research into existing software development methodologies. In addition to ICT4RD research, Alvin is also active in Human Computer Interaction research, specifically in software internationalisation, multimodal interaction, gazed based systems, and the use of ICTs for the preservation of indigenous languages. Alvin earned his PhD from the Computer Science Department, University of Waikato, New Zealand, and is a Member of Expert Review Panel for the Sub-sector of ICT for “National Brain Gain Programme”, appointed by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, and a committee of the Pro-Tem Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Malaysia.