These individuals traveled to the UK and U.S. and often exchanged email with family members and coworkers living in these countries.

Second, prior HCI4D studies—like
many formative studies in HCI—
tended to take place in a single soci-
ety. This approach unintentionally
conceptualizes users and technol-
ogy as if they were disconnected
from other spaces and times. While
information online, specifically dif-
fering notions of responsiveness
and limited bandwidth. First, for
participants working in transna-
tional organizations, the challenge
was the frequent need to communi-
cate with people in other countries.
For example, participants regularly
received email from American
coworkers but unreliable Internet
connectivity affected how quickly
told me how the scarcity of Internet
access affected their ability to
communicate online. Even in envi-
ronments where a given location
(such as an office) had good con-
nectivity, available bandwidth to
international websites (such as free
webmail providers or photo-sharing
websites) is limited, which not sur-
prisingly frustrated many partici-
pants, particularly when they were

March + April 2011

the community’s attention has broadened to include global concerns such as HCI4D, sustainability, and religion, HCI researchers’ dominant approaches to conducting user studies remain focused on disconnected sites rather than the relationships between them [ 4]. To understand global phenomenon, HCI researchers must consider how some topics can no longer be considered in purely local or disconnected terms. I present findings from my fieldwork and use them to elaborate on these issues and to discuss their significance for HCI.

 

interactions

Findings

Following six weeks of fieldwork
in Nairobi [ 5], I uncovered several
factors affecting the exchange of
they could respond to these mes-
sages. When participants were
not at work, they were unable to
follow the ongoing email threads
taking place among their cowork-
ers in the U.S., because they had
limited Internet access outside of
the workplace. During interviews,
participants told me they were
concerned that their colleagues
overseas would view their delayed
email responses as an indication of
a “poor work ethic” rather than a
reflection of their Internet access.
Managing different expectations for
responsiveness and alerting those
in more connected environments
about their colleagues’ intermittent
and (at best) slow Internet access
was a struggle for participants.