Open Access

ARTICLE

Investigating the Use of Email Application in Illiterate and SemiIlliterate Population

by Sadeeq Jan, Imran Maqsood, Salman Ahmed, Zahid Wadud, Iftikhar Ahmad

1 National Center for Cyber Security-UETP, Department of CS&IT, University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan.
2 Department of Computer Software Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Mardan, Pakistan.
3 Department of Computer Systems Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan.

* Corresponding Author: Salman Ahmed. Email: .

Computers, Materials & Continua 2020, 62(3), 1473-1486. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2020.08917

Abstract

The use of electronic communication has been significantly increased over the last few decades. Email is one of the most well-known means of electronic communication. Traditional email applications are widely used by a large population; however, illiterate and semi-illiterate people face challenges in using them. A major population of Pakistan is illiterate that has little or no practice of computer usage. In this paper, we investigate the challenges of using email applications by illiterate and semiilliterate people. In addition, we also propose a solution by developing an application tailored to the needs of illiterate/semi-illiterate people. Research shows that illiterate people are good at learning the designs that convey information with pictures instead of text-only, and focus more on one object/action at a time. Our proposed solution is based on designing user interfaces that consist of icons and vocal/audio instructions instead of text. Further, we use background voice/audio which is more helpful than flooding a picture with a lot of information. We tested our application using a large number of users with various skill levels (from no computer knowledge to experts). Our results of the usability tests indicate that the application can be used by illiterate people without any training or third-party’s help.

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Keywords

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