Testing in the Field: Voice Based Interaction for Citizen Reporting in Uganda.

In developing countries where Internet is not readily accessible and literacy sometimes low, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems have been shown to provide opportunities in a variety of civic activities. In this way, such systems can give the opportunity to more easily influence and participate in public affairs. However the lack of an efficient system of administration can delay delivering the collected reports to the relevant organizations or authorities. This paper presents a study of a citizen reporting system that was developed, implemented and tested in Uganda. This was done in collaboration with the Women of Uganda Network an organization to empower women using ICT. We studied an IVR system called U-Call that allows administrators to easily publish and tag audio reports over the Web (reported by citizen) using low generation mobile devices. We highlight a number of issues, including multiple authentication process that needs to be taken into account for future development. We emphasize the importance of field studies in understanding and designing for this user group and understanding the reality of the technical infrastructure available.