Usability Testing the Self Help Group Digital Platform

A woman in Kongwa District, Tanzania shares her experience of being in a Self Help Group. ( Photo by Rita Langley, CC-BY 4.0)

New Round of User Acceptance Testing

We decided to initiate another round of Self Help Group (SHG) Platform User Acceptance Testing (UAT) that was run in early 2017, with 9 facilitators in a workshop-style day in Kongwa, Tanzania.

All of the participants were involved in SHG programs run by Tearfund Tanzania partner Christian Churches of Tanzania (CCT), who have been using the app with a select number of their SHG facilitators since it was first piloted in 2015.

The 9 facilitators present ran 21 groups between them, involving 517 members. Time was allowed at the beginning of the workshop for non-guided usability testing of the new features, and assessment of issues found there preceded the UAT. As well as the UAT workshop day, we met with them and their groups in the field and heard stories of individual member’s success as well as group resilience.

Rather than assess the successfulness of SHGs overall, the SHG project’s UAT aims to assess the app’s ability to aid in that process by providing education and job support for facilitators.

Key feedback points from the UAT session:

We heard about the advantages of using the app over other facilitation methods. While the volume of information in the curriculum was an obvious advantage here, the facilitators were also appreciative of the ease of updates. Additionally, they talked about the amount of time they spend studying and preparing for meetings, which is considerable but necessary, and the benefits of having a powered device to do that on whenever they had the time, rather than needing a light on at night to read.

Challenges

The key hurdles to facilitating with technology continue to be access to charging facilities, and infrequent connection for those who have to travel to receive a cell signal. We've written more about this here.

Digital advantages and perception of technology

The facilitators were asked some additional questions focused on the way that their use of a tablet was perceived. Of the people in their groups, approx. 45% of people had their own mobile phone, but only a tiny number had access to a smart device.

For 5 of the facilitators, their facilitation tablet was the only smart device in their village. While group members were excited to have use of a tablet, there were some reports of envy from those not in the group. One facilitator mentioned he worries that certain groups of youths will see him carrying it and take it.

However, it was overall seen in a positive light, and the tablets were an aspirational asset for the facilitators who were proud of their access to and expertise with technology. All of the facilitators used the tablet’s other features (camera, phone, email capabilities) for personal and community use outside of its original intent.

Conclusion

We're training our Self Help Group coordinators to run User Acceptance Testing and User Acceptance testing protocols independently. In the future, we will be able to access a network of SHG coordinators to test when we want to explore how certain features are working or could be improved. We see UAT and UT as a key part of the Digital Principles 'Design with the User'.