Isaias Barreto da Rosa

Theory, Practice and Policy: An Inquiry into the Uptake of HCI Practices in the Software Industry of a Developing Country

ABSTRACT With almost four decades of existence as a community, human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has yet to diffuse into a large range of software industries globally. A review of existing literature suggests that the diffusion of HCI practices in software organizations lacks theoretical guidance. Although many studies have tried to facilitate HCI uptake by the software industry, there are scarce studies that consider HCI practices as innovations that software organizations could or should adopt. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of structure in the facilitation of HCI methodological development within the specialized emerging regions field such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to address this gap, an exploratory investigation regarding the state of uptake of HCI practices in Nigeria is conducted. The aim of this article is to improve our understanding regarding the state of HCI uptake in developing countries and the challenges prevailing. The findings show that HCI practice still remains within its infancy stage in most software companies. Universities are also lacking the required knowledge transfer of HCI to the students, and in effect themselves contributing to the lack of HCI skills in industry. Furthermore, government policies are in need of refinement and end-users’ involvement in software development is not prioritized.

Current State of HCI Practice in the Estonian Software Development Industry

The information society is expected to use information technologies extensively. This expectation often results to pressure on the software industry to develop rapidly, software systems to provide e-services to the society. Unfortunately, many unusable systems are developed and deployed to the society in the process. In Estonia, more than 90 % of the inhabitants use IT for various activities, and most government and business services are delivered through the Internet. Further, the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) is still very young, and Tallinn University, remains the only institution in the Baltic zone, running a programme (masters) in HCI. This study presents the preliminary results of a recently conducted online survey on the extent of uptake of HCI practices. The outcomes of the study show that awareness and knowledge of HCI are still very low in the Estonian software industry.

HCI Practices in the Nigerian Software Industry

In this paper we explore the state of HCI practices in the Nigerian software industry. Our societies have evolved quickly into an information age, and the criticality of software and humans as components of socio-technical systems becomes more worthy to address. In Nigeria, the level of HCI practices is not yet known. We understand clearly, the role of software systems and services to strengthen information societies, and we decided to run a survey of the local software organizations. The results from the survey indicate some level of HCI awareness. Therefore, we conducted some semi-structured interviews in order to deepen our understanding of HCI practices in the industry. The results show there is a knowledge limit regarding HCI practices in the industry. We present a preliminary report of the results obtained from our studies of software organizations in Nigeria.

Designing mobile access to DSpace-based digital libraries

Developing countries face serious problems on building and using digital libraries (DL) due to low computer and Internet penetration rates, lack of financial resources, etc. Thus, since mobile phones are much more used than computers in these countries, they might be a good alternative for accessing DL. Moreover, in the developed world there has been an exponential growth on the usage of mobile phones for data traffic, establishing a good ground for accessing DL on mobile devices. This paper presents a design proposal for making DSpace-based digital libraries accessible on mobile phones. Since DSpace is a popular free and open source DL system used around the world, making it accessible through mobile devices might contribute for improving the global accessibility of scientific and academic publications.

Mobile and Federated Access to DSpace-Based Digital Libraries

In developing countries, people struggle to access print-based publication and also face difficulties in accessing ICT resources such as computer and Internet. Considering the much higher availability of mobile phones than computer in these regions, accessing library materials on mobile devices can be an alternative. On the other hand, in developed countries, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets also demands a proper access to digital libraries on mobile devices. This paper features a mobile application for accessing DSpace-based digital libraries, a popular open source digital library system. The development of this application followed a user centric design approach and aimed at bringing a solution characterized by relevance and novelty.

Using Digital and Traditional Libraries in Developing Countries

Given the existing challenges in accessing print-based publications in developing countries, digital libraries are seen as a good alternative. Thus, it is important to understand how such libraries are used in these contexts, especially when compared with the usage of traditional libraries. This paper analyzes and compares the usage of the digital and traditional libraries of the University Jean Piaget of Cape Verde, aiming at understanding the way they are used, and the relation between the access to the existing information resources in these two libraries.