Engineering rural informatics using agile user centered design

The aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of agile user centered design to engineer rural informatics for rural community. This is because rural communities have unique technological requirements and less is known on the understanding of how rural communities use technologies. Thus, a handicraft web-based system will be developed for Kampung Tengah, Melaka, Malaysia by using agile user centered design. Agile user centered design is commonly seen as the integration of User-Centered Design into agile methods. The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technique and agile approach adapted are contextual inquiry and extreme programming method. Contextual inquiry through qualitative interviewing was conducted before the iteration processes. Subsequently, this web project development used agile approach with two iterations to assist in the extreme programming method. The results demonstrate the applicability of agile user-centered design to engineer rural informatics for rural community. Future work may involve including more HCI techniques and agile approaches together in the agile user centered design methodology to improve the usability and quality of the digital IT artifact.