Towards Appropriate User Interface Design Preserving Rural African Communication Practices: Listeners’ Roles In Face-Toface Communication

Abstract

This mini-thesis examines different socio-cultural norms and communication

behaviours of indigenous communities. In spite of existing Information

Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructural challenges, the software

solutions that have been designed for rural communities have been a major

concern.

In this thesis, qualitative methodologies were used with deliberate sampling of two

village populations to investigate verbal and non verbal behaviour.

In order to design appropriate interfaces for Indigenous Knowledge Management

systems required to capture, store and retrieve local information, the input from

target community members, regardless of their levels of formal literacy education,

has to be explored. The fact that in those communities, communication takes

place primarily through oral transmission also has to be considered. Oral

communication involves both narrators and listeners who engage in an interactive

correspondence including verbal and non verbal communication during

storytelling. Many researchers focus on narrators but in this thesis, we will

concentrate on listeners’ contributions during interpersonal communications in

rural communities. Non verbal communication such as gestures are prevalent in

traditional oral African communities and these can offer rich information that can

be infused in interface designs for human computer interaction. The aim of this

mini-thesis is to identify general socio-cultural norms, communication behaviour

such as non-verbal communication structures (gestures) including general verbal

utterances of the rural Otjiherero speaking people to provide a basis for

subsequent use in the design of local systems. The findings in this thesis were that gestures thought to be universal were specific

to the rural members. It was also found that there were specific verbal and non

verbal gestures that were observed.

This Thesis recommends more research be done in the areas of the correlation

between gesture and verbal communication.