Designing for emerging rural users: experiences from China

As part of IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, we studied information-sharing practices in rural Northern China to understand if and how ICT can help rural residents improve their lives. Interviews and participant observation in two villages showed a profusion of ICT devices, as well as an abundance of face-to-face information exchanges, but a shortage of localized and easily accessible information, and a deep dependence of many rural residents on 'information brokers' such as agricultural extension workers and shop owners. Can ICT support existing practices of information sharing among rural residents, when these practices are largely based on face-to-face encounters and passive reception of information? We argue that in such an environment, ICT should build on existing social habits even if less than ideal, rather than trying to transform them, and we outline a possible way to do so.