TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

POSTIT Seminar

Text-Free User Interfaces in Mobile Devices for

Low-Literate for Rural Community Health
Volunteers
Gamified and Text-Free User Interfaces for
Disadvantaged Users (tentative)

Biju Thankachan

Supervisor – Prof. Markku Turunen

 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Research goals

• Gamified Applications
• Serious games for disadvantaged groups
• Variety of target user groups
• Low-Literate users
• Children
• Novice users of technology
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Previous work done

• Developing text-free user interfaces for Low-Literate

users
• Target users – Anganwadi workers, who are involved
in spreading health related information in India
• Conducted field trips, focus groups, observations
• Work in progress, however pace is slow
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Insights from field work

• Although using technology in day-to-day life, but not much

use in work related tasks.
• All the information is maintained manually in multiple
registers.
• During training programs, these workers watch videos, but
they wished they could show those videos to the pregnant
women
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Current Research

• Involved with DigiKeili Project – Language Learning

Application for Nganasan
• Language belonging to Uralic Samoyedic family spoken in
Northern Russia
• Spoken by only around 120 people (as per 2010 data)
• Project aims to develop tools to learn and preserve this
endangered language
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Current Research
• Target User groups
• Primary school children aged 6-12 years
• Familiarity with Russian language
• Challenges
• User group not easily accessible
• Limited language related resources
• Low penetration of technology
• Solution
• We developed a gamified learning application for children to be used with tablets
• Currently we are conducting pilot studies in Tampere and Tallinn
• User study will be conducted in summer and autumn
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction
Theory lessons,
vocabulary
DigiKieli Application - Main menu additional reading,
Stories ……

Progress bar
for the whole
Course
(5 lessons = 20%
each)

Lesson to open

Locked lesson
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

DigiKieli Application

• Learning the
alphabets through
sounds.
• Learning to write
the alphabets and
numbers.
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

DigiKieli Application

Sounds

• Provides a variety of
learning lessons. Numbers

• Option to record words Verbs/Actions

and hear the spoken

word.
• Monitor Progress of
mastering the lessons.
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

DigiKieli Application

• Local folk-tales and

examples to learn words
and actions.
 TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

User Study

• Focus on measuring motivation, engagement and

learning.
• Tasks to be completed individually and in pairs.
• We have created learning diaries for children and
teachers.
TAUCHI – Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction

Thank you