Literacy and Mobile Phone Use

As user experience practitioners we are challenged to create innovative designs and engaging experiences.

Through the design and development process we take great measures to ensure our products, web sites, and applications are accessible.  What disabilities and impairments do we account for in our design? In the developed world, what assumptions do we make about our users? Is it fair to say that we assume, and therefore design for a certain, minimum level of literacy? If this is the case, what happens to the people on the margins of this presupposed level of literacy? How do people with low to no literacy manage to use mobile devices, for example, which are designed with primarily text-based interfaces?

Mobile phone use is prolific through the developed and the developing world, where literacy levels vary greatly from densely populated urban areas to sparsely inhabited rural villages. Despite the fact that a large number of users around the world are unable to read the text-based interfaces on their mobile phones, which were clearly not designed with them in mind, they continue to use them. Not only are low to no literacy populations using mobile devices, they are using them in ways the designers of these products never imagined. They are coming up with innovative and creative work-arounds to make the device work for them– to do the things that they need the device to do for them, in their specific context.

I am in the data collection phase of an exploratory study to learn more about how low literacy adults in the U.S. use their cell phones. I am interested to know what this particular market segment finds easy and challenging about using their cell phones, what, if any, work-arounds they employ, and how the design of these devices can be improved to make them easier for this population to use. Despite the fact that these users are unable to read and comprehend the text-based menu options that display on their phones, they do find ways to do the things they need and want to do with their cell phones.

In other parts of the world illiterate users are being equally if not more innovative with their mobile devices. People in rural villages and urban slums are setting up small enterprises, transferring money, obtaining real time quotes for products and services, and accessing weather reports with their mobile phones. And this is just the beginning. The potential use(s) for mobile devices in myriad situations around the world is just beginning to unfold.

With all of this in mind, perhaps as user experience designers and practitioners we need to broaden and rethink our design strategy moving forward. The global market is evolving and expanding rapidly, and as this happens, our potential user base continues to grow at an exponential rate. Can we as user experience practitioners be as creative and innovative with our designs as the many people around the world who have adapted our designs to fit their needs in their specific context of use?  Can we innovate design that is both engaging to a developed market, and accessible to everyone? I think the answer is yes.