Postcolonial Computing: A Tactical Survey

The authors suggest that postcolonial science studies can do more than expand answers to questions already posed; it can generate different questions and different ways of looking at the world. To illustrate, the authors draw on existing histories and anthropologies and critical theories of colonial and postcolonial technoscience. To move […]

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An Integrated Platform Supporting Intangible Cultural Heritage Learning and Transmission

The paper offers an experience-based viewpoint on two key phases of the development of an Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)-based system: the definition of requirements and identification of related criteria and methodology for its evaluation. In doing so, it refers to the unique context of the i-Treasures EU project, which […]

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Interview with Stefan Bock on HCI initiatives at BOSCO Uganda

Can you give a little background to the BOSCO Uganda Project and your role in the project? How did you become interested in working in the HCI field.BOSCO Uganda (Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach) is a rural communications project based in Gulu, Northern Uganda. It was launched in 2007 […]

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Activity Situated Semiotics in Human-Computer Interaction: Digitally Augmenting Museum Experiences

In the digital age, the museum experience can be enhanced using digital technologies and expanded beyond the time and space of the visit. Instead of being just passive viewers in the exhibition, visitors can be engaged in creating and sharing digital artefacts and stories as a result of augmented museum […]

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Play and Power: a Ludic Design Proposal for ICTD

This paper puts forth a notion of ludic design, drawing from work in HCI by Phoebe Sengers and Bill Gaver, as an avenue through which ICTD can begin to contend with the historical discourse of the developmental enterprise. This discourse, which we term the “developmental optic,” is one that envisions […]

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Encountering Development Ethnographically

HCI for Development (HCI4D) lies at the intersection of Information Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and Human-computer Interaction (HCI). The mainstream HCI community creates user experiences for the developed-world consumer, while ICT4D is concerned about creating relevant technologies for developing nations. Their fusion—HCI4D—evolved and re-aligned goals to design user experiences […]

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HCI as an Instrument for Strengthening Culture and Language of a Colombian Native Community

Abstract This paper is about the relationship between culture and human-computer interaction. Cultures are live, open and in continuous change. Computer and information technology, as external factors for non-Western-industrialized societies, may trigger transformations, that sometimes, could be considered as negative or unwanted. For example, the usage of Western word-processors modified […]

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Human–Computer Interaction and Global Development

A publication by Kentaro Toyama (2010) Abstract International development is concerned with making life better for the least privileged people of the world. Since the 1990s, HCI has engaged increasingly with development through an interdisciplinary field known as “information and communication technologies for development,” or ICT4D. This article overviews the […]

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StoryBank: Mobile Digital Storytelling in a Development Context

A paper by David M. Frohlich, Dorothy Rachovides, Kiriaki Riga, Ramnath Bhat, Maxine Frank, Eran Edirisinghe, Dhammike Wickramanayaka, Matt Jones and Will Harwood (2009) Abstract Mobile imaging and digital storytelling currently support a growing practice of multimedia communication in the West. In this paper we describe a project which explores […]

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Designing User Interfaces for Novice and Low-Literacy Users

One of the greatest challenges in developing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for global development is that 41% of the population in the least developed countries is non-literate and even the literate among the poor are only novice users of technology. I will describe work we have done over the […]

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Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the year 2020

“The question persists and indeed grows whether the computer will make it easier or harder for human beings to know who they really are, to identify their real problems, to respond more fully to beauty, to place adequate value on life, and to make their world safer than it now […]

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Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues

This publication is available through the Inter-Disciplinary Press(many good things there – definitely worth checking out). Contents Introduction Anna Maj and Daniel Riha Part I: Theories and Concepts in Digitizing Individual and Community Memory The Trouble with Memory: Reco(r)ding the Mind in Code Laura Schuster (New) Media and Representations of the […]

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Human-Computer Interaction for Development: The Past, Present, and Future

Abstract Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This […]

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Re-framing HCI through local and indigenous perspectives

This post provides information about “Re-framing HCI through local and indigenous perspectives,” one of several workshops that will be held at this year’s Interact2011 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Lisbon, Portugal. Interact2011 Workshop on Indigenous HCI Monday, 5 September 2011 Workshop organizers Jose Abdelnour-Nocera, University of West London Masaaki Kurosu, […]

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HCI for the Developing World

President Truman, in his 1949 inaugural address, announced his plan for America to “embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.” He said that although our material resources for helping humanity were […]

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