Bridge Notes

There are ten regions in Ghana (similar to states in the U.S.); the Upper West Region is one of the two most rural and remote. There are nine districts (similar to counties) within the Upper West, during my last trip I spent most of my time with people in the Jirapa and Wa-East districts. In an earlier post, I mentioned my work with NGOs, district assemblies, and universities; now, I’ll describe what I learned from people in three villages in the Jirapa District: Ving Ving, Chapuri, and Ping. In each village, I was be speaking with between 40 and 70 people, including children, women, and men (although I often had to request that the women join us).

Describing the Talking Book Device

I always spoke through a translator, who would usually be a teen-age boy who had enough schooling to understand English. English is the national language of Ghana, often called the Second Language or Language 2. A child grows up speaking the mother tongue of their ethnic group; but they then begin learning English throughout school. Very few adults speak English in any of these rural villages and just as few can read or write their first language.

Once I found a translator in each village (once it was the village chief), I would ask people in the village to reflect on the messages that local NGOs (nonprofits) and governement health workers came to deliver. I would give an example of information to help prevent the spread of Malaria, the dehydration of small children due to diarrhea, or a method of improving crop yields with proper spacing of seeds. The translator would then translate that sample message, during which I would record the translation on my digital voice recorder. I would then explain that the Talking Book Device would allow someone to collect and listen to messages such as this — and then would play back the voice of the translator speaking the health or agricultural knowledge in their local language. This technique seemed to work well to quickly get the point across to people.

I also brought a non-functioning physical prototype of the device with me to pass around after they understood how it would function.

Feedback on the Physical Attributes and Accessibility of the Device

I intentionally did not show them how to hold the device, because I wanted to see if they would naturally grasp it the way it was intended, which nearly all of them did. I did notice that there were a few people who would hold it 180 degrees from its designed position; in other words, they would hold the device so that the speaker was on the bottom and the microphone was on the top. Without any lettering on the device, there was no cues to tell them which way was up. This became a requirement into the next iteration of our design: some inherent “upness” to the design.

The orange color went over pretty well. Only a few people said they would prefer a different color. However, many people thought that the device should be available in several colors. Orange was fine, but green and blue were the most requested additional colors.

Feedback on size and weight was very important to me. I was quite surprised that very few people complained about the weight, which was exaggerated since the device had two alkaline D-cell batteries, which are quite a bit heavier than the carbon-zinc batteries that are available in most rural regions throughout developing countries. I had heard from friends in Ghana and India that a solid device with some weight would be much more attractive to people than something closer to an iPod, which would be viewed as delicate an unreliable. This was exactly the reaction I experienced first-hand. There was only one comment about the size: the school children in these villages rarely owned bags for their school books. If the size could not be made small enough to fit into a pocket, it was suggested that we make sure that it would be easy to find a string or piece of material that could be used to carry the device over a shoulder or neck. We had already designed a “lanyard hole”, but this feedback made me understand a specific use case for it

The oval shape was generally a hit, although we are now experimenting with a design that addresses the need for vertical asymmetry. Everyone seemed to think it was pretty comfortable in their hands. In one village meeting (Ving Ving) there was a blind man and a man with only one hand present at the meeting. I made a point to check with each of them to see if they found the device comfortable and usable. The blind man seemed to be satisfied with the layout of the buttons and the distinctness of each button. The man with one hand had no problem reaching each button with the thumb of the hand he held the device in.

The best surprise for me was how young children were able to handle the device so easily. A few of us were concerned that the size and weight would make the device hard to handle by pre-school age children. I suppose we could have done this test in Seattle, but it was great to see a three-year old easily and quite happily play with the device, grasping it with one hand and using the other hand to push buttons. The Talking Book Device is not only designed to be used by adults for literacy education and access to information, but also as a tool for children to improve literacy learning inside and outside the classroom.

Market Research on Price Point

I was not able to conduct any sort of comprehensive market research on the price that people would be willing to pay, but I did confirm that our expectations that a $5-$7 price was more than acceptable by the people in these villages, given that they see real value in the device. Even people living on less than $1/day can find a way to afford a $7 device, if they believe it will impact their family’s health and economic well being. During our pilot program this September, we will gather a lot of information about the people participating in the pilot (particularly about their economic resources and opportunities), but for now I’ll just mention that:

• More than nine out of ten were farmers.
• Most of these were subsistence farmers
• There was no access to electricity, running water, or sewage/septic facilities at any of these villages. I don’t believe there was even a pit toilet in any of these villages.
• Most families owned a small radio (costing between $4.00 and $8.00) and a flashlight (~$1.50).
• Approximately 2-5% might own a mobile phone, which costs about $40.
• No one owned any motorized vehicles, although an NGO worker in one or two of the villages had the use of a motorcycle. I did see a bicycle or two in one or two of the villages.

Requested Audio Content

I was not surprised to learn that health and agriculture information was among the most requested types of audio content. Also in the top three requests was information on starting a small business. Literacy Bridge won’t be creating any of this content, but understanding what audio content people are interested in allows us to know which local organizations we should prioritize meeting with and helping create audio content.

I also received very positive feedback about interest in using the device as a literacy tool for children and adults. In the village of Ping, the translator was a school teacher. He immediately embraced the idea of the Talking Book Device as a tool for enhancing school lessons. In fact, after our meeting, he demonstrated how he might use the device to record a lesson during class and then make that lesson available to all the children who had devices, so that they could practice after class. He even had some of the children practice the alphabet with the model of the device in their hand, showing how they might also record what they practiced so they could play it back later.

Local Stories

Each Talking Book Device has a microphone and recording ability built into it. For minimal extra cost, we did this for a couple reasons. One reason is that the Talking Book Project is designed primarily for locally created content. Although nearly all the NGOs and government field offices will have access to a computer that could run our audio authoring software, we also want to make it possible to record a simple message into the device directly. Another reason for this is that it allows any listener to also be a creator of content for others to hear. This could allow a farmer to share an agricultural practice that seems to work well with others, but it could also allow people in villages to capture and share recordings of stories passed down from their ancestors. While this use might not directly relieve poverty, my experience is that it will attract people to the device and will serve as another important function: cultural preservation at a time when many small ethnic groups are losing their unique heritage.

During my last trip there were several people who were excited about the possibility to record stories. In fact, one of them recorded a story directly on my digital voice recorder, which I may post on our site some time.

That’s probably more than enough for now. I’ll post more later on any other feedback I recall during my time in the villages.