Refining crowdsourced requirements

On July 20 a five man team consisting of two lecturers Mr Gereon Koch Kapuire and Mr Colin Stanley, Professor Jesse V. Johnson and two undergraduate students Juliuson T. Amakali and Albertus P. Coetzee all from Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) undertook a trip to Okomakuara,a rural community around 65 km north of Windhoek. The purpose of the trip was to refine the crowdsourced requirements for the Request Management tablet application with the OvaHerero elders of the community.

Initially there was some uncertainty on whether the unannounced visit would be well received. It has been more than a year since any contact was made with the people of Okomakuara and it was suspected that they might have reservations engaging in the co-design process. However, the elders consisting of 3 Males and 2 Female were quite welcoming and willing to listen to what the team had to say and in turn give their requirements and feedback on how they would like to use and interact with the system.

Much insight was gained into how people with minimal exposure to technology perceived things like icons and logical workflow of applications much differently than people who use technology on a daily basis.Furthermore it was interesting to observe that the designs for nearly all the icons chosen by the OvaHerero elders were identical to those selected by the OvaHimba people involved in the co-design process in Opuwo.