Design Insights from the Implementation of a Student Result Processing System in Nigeria

Abstract

The design of digital technologies is often influenced by the infrastructural, economic, and social realities of the environment of the designer. Thus, the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community emphasize various strategies to learn from and about target users (Brown et al., 2010). However, products that are designed with the amount of detail recommended by the HCI community require a significant amount of time, energy and skill and as a result are expensive. The high cost of these services force individuals and organizations to resort to commercial products and it is often the case that commercial products that are successful for one group of people might be unsuitable for another (Johns et al., 2002). To address this problem, user groups often adapt the technology to suit their needs, use the technology in unintended ways or ultimately reject them. In this paper we present a case-study where locally developed technology was preferred over commercial solutions. We draw design insights from this experience on how we might design educational technologies while considering the culture of the target users.

Keywords: Education, Result computation in Higher Education, Educational Software Tools, Digital Tools in Higher Education

DOI: 10.7176/DCS/9-8-05

Publication date: August 31st 2019