Ethnographic examination for studying information sharing practices in rural South Africa

This progress paper describes a study plan and research theme with the focus on information sharing practices, social habits and behavioral access patterns in the context of the mobile phone and ICT usage of rural users in the emerging economies such as South Africa. The aim is to design new solutions to support rural users and their economic existence. An ethnographic field study was performed in order to understand the living conditions of rural communities and the related problems and opportunities in the field of mobile phone and ICT usage. A variety of qualitative measures such as contextual inquiry, participant observation, design exercises, focus and individual interviews were used during the field. However, only preliminary results from field studies are described in this paper. In our study, we found that needs and expectations of the users dwelling in rural context of different emerging economies are very much different from that of developed world. Product designers must consider these needs in order to deliver successful ICT and mobile-based services.