Contextualizing design of remote interventions for local food systems resilience strategies in literature
I began my academic explorations on this blog a couple of months ago with a post on the power of sensemaking to transform the context and frame of reference, and thus provide a means for empowering one to make decisions for a decidedly unknown near future, where increased uncertainty and volatility have become the norm. […]
Theoretical background for contextualizing User Agency in Participatory Processes
Scandinavian participatory design practices are not distinguished by particular methods but rather by political commitments to societal concerns and relationships with participating users and communities. Pelle Ehn writes:`In the interest of emancipation, we deliberately made the choice of siding with workers and their organisations, supporting the development of their resources for a change towards democracy […]
Effective Toolmaking: Shifting the Mindset Away from that of “Expert”
The beauty of struggling with words and concepts in order to best articulate them in a manner that reflects one’s lived experience in practice is that one remains true to one’s search for songs of magic regardless of the themes of introspection. This realization has freed me from various self imposed constraints on my use […]
The importance of user agency for good design in the humanitarian and development context
This is a topic that has come up so often on Twitter that I thought to write it out once and for all. A link would be ever so much easier to argue with than to make the case for recognizing the agency of the end user – whether an intended customer or beneficiary – […]
Mpesa takes on Banks with Mobile wallet linked Prepaid Card
On June 10th, Kenya’s leading mobile payments platform, Mpesa, announced it was piloting a Lipa na Mpesa prepaid card linked to mobile wallets. The card is an interesting product in a Kenya’s payment market turf wars. Banks versus a dominant Telcos, Safaricom. According to Techweez, “The card, mirrors a user’s M-Pesa account, meaning whatever amounts […]
The importance of the agent/customer relationship for successful financial inclusion
The role of agent networks in East Africa’s mobile money and mobile banking roll-outs is widely documented; as an intermediary, a kiosk exchange point – accepting deposits for e-money/ withdrawals for cash and usajili (registration). “. . .as the first point of contact, human agents help bridge the gap between a high-tech service and low-literacy […]
Projected Impact of recognizing and integrating end-user’s agency on innovation adoption rates
Rajasthan, India January 2009 Our problem statement for the recently completed, two phase project on sustainable agricultural value chains, was framed as follows: What are the barriers to adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that limit their spread and scaling? What are reasons and/or causes of the existence of these barriers? The complexity and wicked nature […]
