research-article

TroTro: web browsing and user interfaces in rural Ghana

Authors:

Jay ChenAuthors Info & Claims

ICTD '13: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1

Pages 185 - 194

https://doi.org/10.1145/2516604.2516609

Published: 07 December 2013 Publication History

Abstract

The quality of Internet connections around the world is extremely varied and very poor in rural areas despite high enthusiasm and investment of resources in computers. This study focuses on Internet users at schools and Internet cafés in rural Ghana. We wished to explore whether there were challenges to Internet use in addition to the poor connection quality itself. In our study we found that beyond connectivity, the lack of computer knowledge, poor usability of web interfaces, and "foreignization" of technology compounded the problem. To improve web access in these contexts, we designed TroTro, a browsing system that maintains a usable experience despite fluctuating connectivity and a wide range of user expertise. We followed web usability heuristics in our design and our results show evidence that our system allows both novice and expert computer users to enhance their individual web experience, explore content across different kinds of network conditions, and share resources within their community.

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Cited By

Mehra ASairam VMittal K(2024)BlendNet: An Assisted Digital Distribution Platform for Underserved PopulationsProceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3674829.3675056(1-17)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674829.3675056
Zaber MNardi BChen JZegura E(2018)Responding to Riverbank Erosion in BangladeshProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3209811.3209823(1-11)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209811.3209823
Vozniuk AHolzer AMazuze JGillet DSaif U(2017)GraaspBoxProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136572(1-11)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136560.3136572
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Index Terms

TroTro: web browsing and user interfaces in rural Ghana
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

ICTD '13: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1

December 2013

278 pages

ISBN:9781450319065

DOI:10.1145/2516604

General Chairs:
Gary Marsden,
Julian May,
Program Chairs:
Jonathan Donner,
Tapan Parikh

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Sponsors

IPID: International Network for Postgraduate Students in the area of ICT4D
University of the Western Cape: University of the Western Cape
Google Inc.
Nokia
Microsoft: Microsoft
University of Cape Town
Microsoft Reasearch: Microsoft Reasearch
IDRC: International Development Research Centre
IBM: IBM

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 December 2013

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NYU Abu Dhabi Institute's Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED)

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ICTD 2013

Sponsor:

IPID
University of the Western Cape
Microsoft
Microsoft Reasearch
IDRC
IBM

ICTD 2013: International conference on information and communication technologies and development

December 7 - 10, 2013

Cape Town, South Africa

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Overall Acceptance Rate 22 of 116 submissions, 19%

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Cited By

Mehra ASairam VMittal K(2024)BlendNet: An Assisted Digital Distribution Platform for Underserved PopulationsProceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3674829.3675056(1-17)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674829.3675056
Zaber MNardi BChen JZegura E(2018)Responding to Riverbank Erosion in BangladeshProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3209811.3209823(1-11)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209811.3209823
Vozniuk AHolzer AMazuze JGillet DSaif U(2017)GraaspBoxProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136572(1-11)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136560.3136572
Zaber MNardi BChen JNardi BTomlinson B(2017)A Study of Hashtag Activism for Raising Awareness about Riverbank Erosion in BangladeshProceedings of the 2017 Workshop on Computing Within Limits10.1145/3080556.3080557(51-58)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3080556.3080557
Bashir S(2017)Broken link repairing system for constructing contextual information portalsJournal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences10.1016/j.jksuci.2017.12.013Online publication date: Dec-2017
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2017.12.013
Chen JSubramanian LTucker WBagula AMartonosi MRaman B(2013)Interactive web caching for slow or intermittent networksProceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2537052.2537057(1-10)Online publication date: 6-Dec-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2537052.2537057

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