Building Social Life Networks through Mobile Interfaces - The Case Study of Sri Lanka Farmers

The development of mobile applications is paramount to support users living in developing countries to improve their lives. One of the major research challenges is to develop a user interface suitable for such users. In this paper we present the design process we applied in order to develop a mobile application oriented to farmers living in Sri Lanka. The application prototype developed so far has been evaluated against usability requirements and a usability evaluation framework has been devised, which can be used to replicate the tests as the application iteratively reaches its final release. This work represents a pilot study within a wider international research project aiming to provide real-time information to support activities related to livelihood delivered using mobile phone applications targeted to meet the needs of people in developing countries.