Women, Participating and Designing their own Mobile Applications
Convened by Kutoma J. Wakunuma
This session was held on 14th October 2008 in Champions from 3 – 4pm. 10
contributors were present. These included:
Kutoma J. Wakunuma
Christopher Fabian (UNICEF)
Tino Kreutzer
Cheekay Cinco
Lucy Macharia
Lydia Byarugaba
Asta
John Yanulis
Susan Adu
Kathleen Diga (IDRC)
The Thinking
The thinking behind this was influenced by the fact that I noticed there was little to no
talk of involving end-users and in this case women in how they can participate and
subsequently help or influence the design of mobile phone applications that they were
using or intended for their eventual use. I thought the situation was more about how
already existing mobile applications could help in achieving social change or how
applications being developed could change users social standing. I therefore thought
there is an urgent and important need in actually getting women to participate in the
design mobile applications that reflects their situation, their conditions of life and their
needs because they are the ones who know their situation and indeed their needs better
than any developer would. Taking such a position meant the actual understanding of
what it is that women needed to use mobile phone applications for, how they envisioned
the application ought to be designed or look like in terms of features for example,
bearing in mind there are aspects of illiteracy, how they could be involved and how
they would participate etc. We begun by first trying to identify what sort of women we
were talking about:

The Women
The suggestions were as follows:
 Those in small businesses
 Those in health
 Those in need of literacy and who could also held in educating other women
 Women’s groups especially those involved in violence against women
 Women in their own community setup
A further suggestion in this respect was that there is need to understand how women
were also using already existing mobile phone applications. In other words
deconstructing and then constructing new ways of using the applications in ways other
than what or how they were intended to be used.
Understanding what we mean by Mobile “Applications”: What are they?
It was suggested that the term “mobile applications” was one that was banded around
very easily without really understanding what it was and what it actually encompassed.
We therefore brainstormed around this and came up with the following - that:
 Mobile applications are and are about communication and engagement
strategies
 Every feature on and about a phone is an application
 Service provision is also a mobile application.
Designing their own mobile applications, what does it take for women?
It was acknowledged that women faced a lot of social, economic, political as well as
cultural ascription issues which could hinder their full participation and potential in
designing. As such, before they can be expected to participate fully, these issues, such
as power and control, as seen in Kutoma’s research findings on mobile phones and the
benefits including disbenefits for women where in certain situations women were told
when they could use their phones, how, where, and who they talk to by their husbands
and in certain situations forced to sell them to keep the peace in the home, have to be
looked at critically. This is because such unfortunate instances meant there was a fear in
engaging ICT applications like the mobile and with fear came failure in participating
and design processes. Other examples of fear were talked about, especially in child
protection where concerned parties were trying to find innovative ways of encouraging

children to relay their cases of abuse for instance, while protecting their identity.
Suggestions included:
The use of codes where mobile coded text messages would be sent to rely a case of
abuse. However, it was pointed out that in Africa for example, not everyone had a
mobile phone and that in certain homes it was usually the husbands who had mobiles.
As a result, coded messages could hinder and actually exacerbate abuse of women
where it was happening because husbands would simply demand to know what the
coded message meant and who it was being sent to. So other good practice examples
were brought forward, including:
Utilisation of informal networks within communities. In certain parts of Mozambique,
mobiles were used by ‘god mothers/peer leaders/peer counsellors’ to impart knowledge
on STIs and other matters affecting the youth. This allowed spread of information
without the need to expect fathers or mothers to talk to their children about what they
consider are embarrassing and taboo topics.
How can women be involved in participation and design?
An example of projects going on in West Africa where women were being taught basic
literary within their organisation was given. This helped women to develop confidence,
which in turn meant they could share what they learnt with other members of the
community. Furthermore, a realisation of the importance of involving people in the
Diaspora who send money to the villages was also important in sustaining a village’s
development.
Another example from Egypt was shared where it was learnt that women in Egypt were
interested in learning about the mobile phones in orderto be in touch with relations who
were away. In addition, it was important for intimacy i.e. upholding privacy in their
conversations. Therefore, in relation to women’s participation and design, this it is
important to:
 Incorporate women’s input into the education/literacy curriculum for example
 Know what women wanted
 Get the end-user involved in the application, regardless of whether it was
women or not
 Look at content

 Not to assume what the needs of women are.
Why are women users usually by-passed in the design of Mobile Applications?
There was an obvious agreement that end-users and in this respect, women were usually
by-passed when designing applications. As such, the group endeavoured to understand
why that was. The following suggestions were shared:
 A lack of women developers developing open source mobile applications
 It takes longer to involve end-users in the process of design
 Tension between developers and end-users
 The rigid training that developers go through does not normally encourage them
to engage with users
 The fact some developers develop applications over the top shows that they
have a mentality of “living in the ivory tower” and therefore do not usually
develop practical applications to suit certain conditions/communities/groups of
people
 Developers also usually talk of being keen on usability but in fact their
definition of usability is not always feasible
 Developers usually concentrate more on technology research rather than
researching on the social aspects
 There is need to co-create, develop an agile methodology where a blank slate is
brought to the table and users get to define what mobile applications they would
like.
At what level can women/girls be taught or be involved in designing applications?
 Begin at high school. They need to be groomed from an early age
 Before they can be taught, they need to have some form of and level of
computer skills
 Supply computers to communities,to schools, to community centres etc
 BY looking at design from different levels and not necessarily at the highest of
technical levels. It should be and is about frameworks, concepts, ideas as well as
technical stuff
 By studying at communities needs through the use of cultural probes. Let
communities document their needs on their own without the interference of

outsiders. That gives them an opportunity not to act differently as they might in
the presence of outsiders documenting their needs
 To view and teach literacy using various techniques such e.g. videos, cameras,
visual props and not necessarily with the engagement of conventional literacy
knowledge.
Mentalities of the developers themselves
The point was raised that if anything was to be achieved in terms of involving women
in designing their own applications, there was need to delve into and understand the
mentalities of developers i.e. why do they do what they do, why they do not involve
end-users, what are their thoughts on women and designing etc. The following were
some of the results of this particular conversation:
 Is it an ivory tower mentality, where they think they have the right answers and
therefore no other answers matter.
 Need for proactive effort to get developers recognise women’s absence and how
enriching it would be to have their input
 Deadlines to meet developer targets can be a hindrance
 The need to listen is imperative
 The work environment is more systematic and more entrenched in policy
structures, cultural structures, economic structures etc that all needchanging
 Ask and probe developers about who was involved in the development of their
applications, how did they involve them, what was done and at what stage etc
 Send developers to places of need e.g. Google has an office in Kenya, does that
help?
 Immerse developers in communities where there is need
 And need to realise that nothing works in a vacuum, there is need to
acknowledge and work within multidisciplinary areas.
It was agreed that more discussions need to continue on this topic and that perhaps we
should start a Wiki on the subject.
Thank you all for the input.