A Multidisciplinary Approach to ICT Development

Abstract

Despite large-scale investment in ICT in developing countries, information poverty has not been addressed, particularly for rural users. This article analyzes the shortcomings of current ICT design and deployment approaches and attributes the failures to both poorly designed information transfer mechanisms and single disciplinary development approaches. The article calls for adopting a multidisciplinary design approach when developing ICT interventions and proposes employing a user-centered design framework as a tool to help achieve higher user acceptance and efficient information transfer.