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The Advantages of Being ThereDesign at Microsoft Research India
Kentaro Toyama
Assistant Managing Director
Microsoft Research India
IWIPS 2007: “Actually Being There”
June 29, 2007 – Merida Mexico
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
India
People• ~1.1 billion people
– Over half under 25 years old• 22 languages• Annual incomes $100-$100M+• 28 states
Area• ~1/3 the area of United States
Technology• ~20M PCs, installed base• ~140M mobile subscriptions
– +7M each month
Sources: CIA Factbook, TRAI, CNN
Roads in India
India, a Personal View
My first trip to India (2004)
India, a Personal View
People• ~1.1 billion people
– Over half under 25 years old• 22 official languages • Annual incomes $100-$100M+• 28 states
Area• ~1/3 the area of United States
Technology• ~20M PCs, installed base• ~140M mobile subscriptions
– +7M each month
but, power held by fewtremendous energy and optimism
incredible diversity, EM microcosmreminiscent of European Union
impact of weather (ubiquity of agriculture)
huge interest in PCs, by everyonemobiles, mobiles, everywhere
Huge potential opportunity for computing industry.
But, there are new challenges that
neither India nor the industry have ever faced before.
Infosys campus, Bangalore
A small Internet café on a market street in a town near Bombay
Rural village with a VSAT Internet connection near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
Microsoft Research India• Established January, 2005
• Goals– World-class academic research– Contributions to Microsoft products and
businesses– Support growth of research programs
in India and elsewhere
• Six research areas– Cryptography, Security, and Algorithms– Digital Geographics– Mobility, Networks, and Systems– Multilingual Systems– Rigorous Software Engineering– Technology for Emerging Markets
• Currently ~50 full-time staff, growing
• Collaborations with government, academia, industry, and NGOs Microsoft Research India
Sadashivnagar, Bangalorehttp://research.microsoft.com/india
Technology for Emerging Markets
Understand potential technology users in economically poor communities:– E.g., urban domestic labourers– E.g., rural entrepreneurs
Adapt, invent, or design applications of computing that contribute to socio-economic development of poor communities worldwide.
(Focus on research, not on shipping product.)
Computer-skills camp in Nakalabande, Bangalore(MSR India, Stree Jagruti Samiti, St. Joseph’s College)
Microsoft Research India
Interdisciplinary ResearchAishwarya Lakshmi Ratan
– Public Administration and International Development
Jonathan Donner– Communications
Nimmi Rangaswamy– Social Anthropology
Rajesh Veeraraghavan– Computer Science and
Economics
Indrani Medhi– Design
Kentaro Toyama– Computer Science
Randy Wang
Udai Singh Pawar
–
–
Computer Science
Physics
Society
Group
Technology
Individual
Society
Group
Technology
Individual
Innovation
Understanding
Impa
ct
Innovation
Understanding
Impa
ct
Rikin Gandhi– Astrophysics
Often hungry
Childrennot inschool
In perpetualdebt
Breadwinnerin formalsector
“Middleclass”
1
2
1
remainingdata
t0
Computers in Agriculture
Multi-mouse for EducationWell-Being Map Urban Consumer
Digital Study Hall
IT and Microentrepreneurs
Cost-Aware Data Transfer
Rohan MurtyComp. Sci., Harvard
Randy WangComputer Sci, UC Berkeley
Jonathan DonnerCommunications, Stanford
Udai Singh PawarPhysics, IIT Kanpur
Aishwarya Lakshmi RatanPublic Admin., Harvard
Nimmi RangaswamySociology, Univ. of Mumbai
Rajesh VeeraraghavanComp. Sci. & Econ., Clemson
Renee KuriyanEnergy and Res, UC Berkeley
Feature phones as “bar-code” readers for data-entry in rural microfinance
Information ecology of small businesses in developing markets
Cost-aware transfer of data across heterogeneous channels, e.g., for mobiles
DVD exchange over postal service and TVs as display for rural education
Study of dynanic middle-class consumers in urban emerging markets
Experiments with computing and communication systems in agriculture
The state’s role in rural IT projects, with a focus on Kerala’s Akshaya project
Transitions between states of wealth in emerging markets
Text-Free UI
Indrani MedhiDesign, Illinois Inst. of Tech.
UIs without text for users who are illliterate and may never have seen a computer before
Government and Rural IT
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
… to resolve contradictory generalizations:
• Resistance to new technology – But computers have glamour
• Poverty systemic and multi-dimensional– But households functional
• Stark lack of money– But willing to spend
• Information critical…– But rarely the bottleneck
• Computing needs are minimal– But there are opportunities!
The Value of Being There
Resistance to Technology…Many factors inhibit use of
technology:
• High cost
• Reluctance to depart from habits and traditions
• Fear of breaking technology
• Lack of awareness of technology’s functional value
• Barriers of education or literacyA child trying to explain to
her mother what is on a laptop screen.
But, Computers have GlamourExamples of interest in computing
technology:
• Retention rates at schools rise when the school has PCs.
• Rural PC kiosk owners see a rise in their confidence and status in community.
• Office service staff eager to learn about PCs and how to use them.
These examples have little to do with computer function.
A kiosk operator running a near Tiruvallur, Tamil
Nadu
Poverty is Systemic…Stable system makes escape
difficult:
• Lack of money means lack of time to do anything other than survive.
• Lack of time means less time for education.
• Lack of education means fewer job opportunities.
• Lack of job opportunities means lack of money.
“Shocks” to household create downward spiral, and there are always shocks:
• Health problem requires loan• Loan incurs interest• Interest payments prevent capital
accumulation
A government-sponsored mid-day meal in a Tamil
Nadu school.
But, Households still Functional“Good enough” solutions exist:
• Credit: All kinds of loans available
• Healthcare: Traditional medicines, primary healthcare services
• Agriculture information: agriculture extension, word of mouth, salesmen
Persistent Lack of Money…
Bangalore guideline for 45 minutes of housework a day: Rs. 150 (US$3)… per month!
Typical daily wage for agricultural labor: Rs. 60 per day (US$1.33; Rs. 30 for women)
Public-school teacher’s salary varies from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 8000 (US$67-178) per month.
Teachers on a school trip in Karnataka
But, Willingness to SpendLuxury and aspirational
consumption not unusual:
• Weddings costing Rs. 1 lakh (US$2200) in rural villages not infrequent (cf., avg. per capita GDP of ~US$700)
• Mobile phone ring tones popular even at Rs. 10 (US$0.20) per song
• Photography services to “enhance” photos popular. Cost range from Rs. 100 to Rs. 600 (US$2-12)
A Photoshop’ed photo of a village bride (Maharashtra)
Information is Critical…General lack of information hampers
quality of life:
• Hygiene and healthcare knowledge shallow or superstitious
• Poor fundamental and vocational education impedes career growth
• Very practical knowledge not readily available:– Government schemes for the
poor– Job information– Value of savings and investment
A 12-year-old enrolled in typing lessons at a rural
PC kiosk
But, Information not the BottleneckAccess to information not the
problem:
• Physical transfer of goods/cash often required. Transport infrastructure is poor.
• Levels of formal education very low, even with literacy. Education required to distinguish good information from bad.
• Other factors…– No faith in information source– Lack of time or money– Rigid mindsets
A petty shop owner in Tamil Nadu
Computing Needs Minimal…
Information processing rarely required…
• Little use of documents, charts, spreadsheets.
• Paper , pen, and manual calculation difficult to out-do:– Low cost– Lightweight, durable– Additional training not required
But, Technology can Help!
To draw interest of community.
To process and analyze aggregate data.
To streamline or improve existing processes.
Focus group on a potential technology-for-agriculture
project
Removal or reconciliation of preconceptions is the primary value of fieldwork.
General lessons are difficult to draw; contradictions abound.
Fieldwork helps to identify the specific constraints that apply to a given domain or application.
Women from Ariyapalayam, Tamil Nadu, husking corn
The Value of Being ThereRecap
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
The Five Stages of Design
Stage Knowledge Gained
Wonder Technology / Surface Problem
Exuberance Surface Solution
Realization Real Problem
Adjustment Real Solution
Identification User
Deeper
Intuition
Good design comes out of deep intuition into the user.
“Kids in the developing world need the newest technology, especially really rugged hardware and innovative software.”
– Nicholas Negroponte, from the One Laptop Per Child website (2005)
Exuberance
“The world's poorest two billion people desperately need healthcare, not laptops.”
– Bill Gates (WRI Conference, Seattle, 2000)
Realization
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
Warana UnwiredRajesh Veeraraghavan
Over 60% of population in agriculture
Mostly small and marginal farmers with 1-3 acres of land
Average income of $1-2 per day
Agriculture in India
Wonder
Sugarcane cooperative
70 villages, 70000 farmers
Asia’s first “Bridging Digital Divide” pilot (1998)
“Warana Wired Village Project”
Wonder
FactoryFactoryFTP
FTP
FTP
PC
Warana Farmer DB
Standard PC network
Weigh stations
Landline phone
PC enabledKiosks
54 kiosks in 54 villages
Cost: Rs.2.5 crores (US$500,000)
Rural PC Kiosks
Exuberance
• Check market price information
• Provide agricultural advice to farmers
• Conduct land-record transactions
• Surf the Internet
• And, do it all with a private business model!
Original Goals
Exuberance
Allow farmers to…
• Check market price information
• Provide agricultural advice to farmers
• Conduct land-record transactions
• Surf the Internet
• And, do it all with a private business model!
Original Goals
Realization
Allow farmers to…
Internal account MIS:
• Issue harvesting permit• Buy fertilizer through credit• Get paystub
• Query quantity of sugarcane harvested
Actual Use
Realization
High maintenance cost
Intermittent power
Network flaky
PC not optimally used!
Mounting Challenges
Realization
Can we preserve the functionality of the existing PC based system while making the entire system cheaper and more effective?
The Problem
Realization
The Solution: Warana Unwired!
SMS-enabledmobile phones
PC-basedkiosks
Adjustment
FactoryFactoryFTP
FTP
FTP
PC
Warana Farmer DB
Standard PC network
Weigh stations
Landline phone
PC-enabledkiosks
Original PC-Based Set-Up
Adjustment
GSM/CDMA
SMS network
FactoryFactoryPC
Warana Farmer DB
Standard PC network
Weigh stations
SMS-enabledphones
New Mobile-Based Set-Up
Windows
Mobile Remote APIs
SMS
SMS
SMS
Adjustment
24-hour access to services – 6000 SMS processed
80% of requests for getting sugarcane output
1238 unique farmer requests
Response time on harvesting data.– Original: 15 days PC: 2 days
Mobile: immediate
Telcos’ interest has perked up.
Neighboring cooperatives have expressed interest.
Warana Unwired – Results
Adjustment
System Cost/Farmer/Year
New PC System
394
Existing PC System
177
SMS Mobile (kiosks)
159
GPRS(kiosks) 139
SMS Mobile(without kiosks)
111
GPRS ( no kiosks)
91
Units: Rs COST DETAILS:
Common cost:Kiosk rent, Kiosk salary
SMS cost: 50 paise/SMS
GPRS per byte cost: 7000 times cheaper than SMS cost
High Maintenance cost: UPS battery, Hard disk, printer, monitor
No GPRS coverage
Low end phones do not support GPRS
SMS data plans are dropping
Savings over PCs 1 million Rupees /54 villages/1 year($22,000)
Costs
Adjustment
Adjustment
Farmer from pilot village expresses initial disbelief…
Once he sees it on the phone, he gets excited and says,
“Barabar hai, eh tho bahuth accha hai.”“The information is exact and it is very good.”
Farmer from another village demands access…
We tried to tell them that we were in a testing phase, to ensure that the system worked; the farmer replied,
“I saw messages are coming on the mobile phone. There is no problem. So where is the question of success?”
Farmer Response
Adjustment
So far…• Successful replacement of kiosks in
seven villages. System in operation since October 2006.
• Expansion to other villages in cooperative
To do…• Analysis of feedback and surveys
for concrete impact• Pilots with other cooperatives
Status
Adjustment
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
MultiPointUdai Singh Pawar, Joyojeet Pal (UC Berkeley), Kentaro Toyama
Education in India
Rural school in Chinhat, Uttar Pradesh
Wonder
300M children aged 6-18; 210M enrolled in school; 105M actively attending.
Mostly small and marginal farmers with 1-3 acres of land
Teachers poorly trained and frequently absent
No toilets
No walls
No permanent building
Terrible student-teacher ratio
Intermittent electricity
UPS broken
Frequent maintenanceof PCs required
Teachers not computer literate
Caste discrimination
Religious discrimination
Students hungry
Poor retention rates
Poor pay for teachers
Teacher absenteeism
Student illness
No supplies
No textbooks
Parents uninvolvedChild labour Teachers multitasking
Irrelevant curriculum
Heat
Many children per computer
Rural Education: Problems
Wonder
No toilets
No walls
No permanent building
Terrible student-teacher ratio
Intermittent electricity
UPS broken
Frequent maintenanceof PCs required
Teachers not computer literate
Caste discrimination
Religious discrimination
Students hungry
Poor retention rates
Poor pay for teachers
Teacher absenteeism
Student illness
No supplies
No textbooks
Parents uninvolvedChild labour Teachers multitasking
Irrelevant curriculum
Heat
Many children per computer
Rural Education: Problems
Exuberance
PCs in Rural Education
5-10% of primary schools in India already have a PC.
PC classrooms generally used to “babysit” students as teacher teaches other classes.
Typically, 2-6 PCs per primary school.
Exuberance
At school after school…
One PC, many children.
Realization
MultiPoint: Solution
Provide a mouse for every student
– One cursor for each mouse, with different colours or shapes
– USB mice• Have tried up to 20
– Content modified • Game-like environment
Adjustment
MultiPoint: Demo
Adjustment
MultiPoint: ResultsPreliminary user studies [ICTD2006]
• Questions
– Can students understand MultiPoint paradigm?
– How do children interact with MultiPoint?
– Does MultiPoint increase engagement?
• Methodology
– Trials:• 20 min single mouse• 20 min MultiPoint• 10 min free play
– 3 trials of 6-10 children
Before
Adjustment
MultiPoint: Early Results• Everyone wants a mouse.
– Girls more likely to share than boys.
• Kids understand MultiPoint immediately.
• All students more engaged for longer periods of time.– Even children without mice engage
longer.
• Self-reporting is positive.– Exception: one student didn’t like
MultiPoint because of competitiveness
Before
After
Adjustment
MultiPoint: Advantages
Incentives aligned
– Cost effective: One computer + 5 mice comes to ~$100 per child.
– Content authors can adapt to paradigm
– Government / administrators can claim better use of computers
– Teachers can keep more students entertained
– Students have more fun (cf., multi-player computer games)
Adjustment
MultiPoint: Current Work
Current work
– Software SDK for content writers to be released in August 2006
– Technical features to maximize educational value of MultiPoint
– More user studies to test pedagogical value
– Pilots with NGOs in India– Hoping to disseminate beyond
India
New hypothesis: Better for primary education than one PC per child?
Adjustment
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
Text-Free User InterfacesIndrani Medhi, Kentaro Toyama
Illiteracy
1-2 billion illiterate population in the world.
98% live in developing countries.
India’s rate of literacy (optimistically) estimated at
~60%.
Wonder
Target Users
Women from several Bangalore slums
Informal sector jobs
Income range: INR 800-2500 (USD 20-50) per month
Illiterate or semi-literate
Most have never seen a PC (those who have seen, only in their employers’ homes; but, not allowed to touch)
Wonder
Ethnographic Design
Exuberance
300+ hours with over 250 people from urban slums in Bangalore:
– Interviews– Participatory design – Rapid prototyping– Subject trials
Text-Free UI, Take 1
Design Principles:
– Pen or touch interface
– Liberal use of icons and images
– Voice feedback
– Care in details of graphics; semi-abstracted cartoons
– Aggressive use of mouse-over functionality
– Consistent help iconMonster.com for domestic labourers?
Maps for illiterate users?
Exuberance
User Studies, Take 1
Task: For a friend who is unemployed, find the best-paying job in her neighborhood.
Results: Subjects could manipulate the application, but only 30% completed the task, even with significant prompting:
Problem: Deeper problem in motivation and lack of cognitive model of how the PC worked.
Realization
Can any UI be converted into one that is usable by illiterate users?
ILLITERACY
FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY
LACK OF TRUST IN TECHNOLOGY
LACK OF AWARENESS OF WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN DELIVER
New Problem!
Can a UI be developed to allow an illiterate, first-time PC user to access information he/she needs without any assistance or prompting?
New question:
Original question:
Realization
Full-Context Video
A full-context video explains the broader context of the application and how it works, in addition to instructional material about how to use the application.
Full-Context Video
Adjustment
Full-context video has clear value:
Without video first, only one out of 17 (6%) was able to complete the task at all, taking 11 prompts and 8.2 minutes
With video first, 18 out of 18 completed the task, with an average of 4.7 prompts and 6.5 minutes
Without Video (A)
With Video (B)
Total
Task Completed (out of 35) 8 35
Prompts reqd for completion 9.8 5.2
Avg completion time (min) 9.01 4.59
Sequence - AB
Task Completed - AB 1 17
Prompts reqd for completion 11 5.9
Avg completion time (min) 8.2 8.6
Sequence - BA
Task completed – BA 7 18
Prompts reqd for completion 6 4.7
Avg completion time (min) 10.8 6.5
User Studies, Take 2
Adjustment
Qualitative Results
Other observations:
Round-two subjects were incredulous that round-one subjects didn’t understand the application.
Impact of video not permanent for most subjects. Many wanted to see the full-context video each time, even after seeing it before.
Full-context video appears to increase motivation, as well as performance.
Those who saw full-context video were interested in providing feedback on the specifics of the UI.
Adjustment
Text-Free UI, Take 1
Design Principles:
– Pen or touch interface
– Liberal use of icons and images
– Voice feedback
– Care in details of graphics; semi-abstracted cartoons
– Aggressive use of mouse-over functionality
– Consistent help icon
– Full-context video
Adjustment
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage?
The story thus far…
Stage Warana Unwired MultiPoint Text-Free UI
Wonder agrarian society rural education illiteracy
ExuberanceInternet for
farmers!PCs in
classrooms!UIs without text!
Realizationlittle PC value for
most farmerstoo many children
per PCUI manipulation
not the issue
AdjustmentSMS-based
inventory querymultiple mice per
PCfull-context video
Identification ? ? ?
Why not PC kiosks?
Identification
Soup kitchens brand themselves another wayand serve a different kind of community.
Four-star restaurants brand themselves one way, and serve a particular clientele.
The importance of branding in serving food…
It’s difficult to serve both client groups in one physical location.
Why MultiPoint?
Identification
Games are fun, and games with other kidsare even more fun!
People are already accustomed to sharing hardware.
Why Full-Context Video?
If you were told that, if you put anything in this box and spelled
the object’s name 100 times out loud, it would come to life…
Identification
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
– Arthur C. Clarkewould you bother to do it?
Recapitulation
StageWarana Unwired
MultiPoint Text-Free UI
Wonder agrarian society rural education illiteracy
ExuberanceInternet for
farmers!PCs in
classrooms!UIs without text!
Realizationlittle PC value
for most farmers
too many children per PC
UI manipulation not the issue
AdjustmentSMS-based
inventory querymultiple mice per
PCfull-context video
Identification“Just the info I
need.”“We’ll share and play!”
“Demystify it for me.”
Cyclical
process
Outline
The Challenge of India
The Value of Being There
The Five Stages of Design
Three Projects from MSR India– Warana Unwired– MultiPoint– Text-Free User Interfaces
The Last Stage Starts It All Over Again!
