A set of heuristic measurements for evaluating the inclusiveness of a technology

Abstract

At a high level of abstraction, 'social inclusion' can be defined as the extent to which an individual or community can fully participate in society and control their own collective destiny. There are large disparities in this, particularly in underdeveloped rural areas of the world. Information and communication technologies designed to address this disparity must take into account the many barriers in the use of technology that these communities face. We define an 'inclusive technology' as a technology which overcomes the barriers to using technology inherent within a given community and increases the opportunities available to that community. We propose a conceptual model and a set of heuristic measurements for examining the 'inclusiveness' of a technology with respect to a given community, and illustrate their use by applying them to two real-world projects. By proposing this model and set of measurements, we hope to achieve a better understanding of 'development projects' and create a systematic process and a framework to assist software engineers in designing and evaluating software based services intended to reduce the Digital Divide. © 2007 International Federation for Information Processing.