Beyond the text box: designing AI that low-literacy users will actually use

The AI Design & UX Learning Group, convened by Isabelle Amazon-Brown, Sara Chamberlain and Sofie Meyer, is bringing designers and researchers together for a discussion-led session on successful approaches to AI for low-literacy users. We’ll hear how two organisations have rethought the way users interact with their AI-powered tools: One replaced typing with taps and the other replaced text with voice. We’ll then discuss what that means for anyone designing for low-literacy users in low-resource settings.

Register here to join us on Thursday 19 November at 11:00 GMT / 16:30 IST!

It’s now relatively easy to build chatbots that competently answers questions. Getting people to engage with them is much harder. Noora Health’s free WhatsApp service gives mothers in India doctor-verified answers to health questions, yet only 3% of mothers ever ask one. Typing takes effort, and many mothers aren’t sure what to ask or whether their question is worth asking.

For rural women who can’t easily read a screen, the barriers start even earlier. Text interfaces expect reading, typing and menu navigation, and each step risks losing a user. In India, where 3 in 10 women cannot read or write, organisations are urgently experimenting with alternatives. 

We’re excited to be joined by:

• Noora Health, who will share findings from experiments with around 227,000 mothers across four states, run with behavioural science firm Irrational Labs, which grew the share of mothers getting a health answer from 4.7% to 19.7%. 
• Vinod Raghuwanshi, Co-founder and CTO, and Sunali Panda, Chief of Staff, at Leap300, will discuss how voice and visuals replace text across a programme that helps women from the lowest-income households set up micro-enterprises within 300 days.

These conversations will be followed by an open discussion of participants’ own experiences of designing for users who don’t type, don’t read easily, or don’t know what to ask. We hope to see you there!

Register here to join us on Thursday 19 November at 11:00 GMT / 16:30 IST!