Hello, everyone!
I’m Amrit Sajeev,
and I work as a Developer Relations Engineer for Android.
And I’m Mrinal Sharma, working as a UX Manager in the Android team.
Today, we want to discuss some of the things that you should keep in mind
when building solutions for novice internet users.
With this session, we hope to help you get a better understanding of NIUs
and some aspects that are overlooked when building solutions for this audience.
Novice internet users are not just users who are getting started with the internet.
When we use the word “new,”
we automatically associate something like a timeline in our head,
which is only partially correct.
Novice internet users are people who either currently don’t see the internet
as a useful way to advance their key needs and aspirations
or those who may not have the required digital literacy
and confidence to realize its benefits.
There’s no time limit on how long it takes to progress
from being a nascent user to an expert one.
There are more characteristics that define the novice user of the internet
and let's look at some of them.
The value propositions of digital products
are either hard to discover or remain hidden for NIUs.
They often have low awareness of what's available online,
and even if regional or local content or services are available online,
it’s tough for them to find them unless aided by others.
Sometimes, the value propositions of digital products
are not aligned with their own needs and aspirations.
They may also be unaware of how an existing online product
can be helpful in meeting their life goals, unless explained by others.
NIUs find existing digital interfaces often abstract, complex, and alienating.
Experiences that require higher textual or numerical literacy are often tough
to comprehend or engage with.
They avoid text-heavy UIs, technical words, and often gravitate to visual UIs.
In many cases, digital products don’t offer support, guidance, and encouragement
in ways that match NIU’s learning styles.
Getting overwhelmed early while experiencing internet products
often leads to the fear that the internet isn’t for me,
or that they'll break something by exploring more.
These irreversible experiences online
may lead to them avoiding the apps they don’t know, they don’t trust,
or they haven’t been recommended to them by their friends or family.
If you ask most developers to define NIUs,
they would say something like this:
A small segment of users that use a low-end smartphone
and are present in NBU markets and might be using internet rarely.
But that's not exactly true.
First of all, there are lots of users in the segment.
Some of them even use high-end devices and can be frequent internet users.
Many of them are present outside of NBU markets, too.
Many times, a light app is not the ideal solution for such users.
As NIUs lean on others to learn tech,
they struggle when their app is different from their peers,
and this slows down their learning.
While light apps are faster, the NIUs
don’t want to miss out on the experience and features of the normal app.
Moving from the light version of the app to the flagship app
often makes these users feel like they’re learning the app all over again.
Before you consider a lighter version,
try to understand the digital behaviors of these nascent users
and try to think of features that optimize their needs
and focus on crafting a consistent app experience across products.
Let’s take a look at some of the top pain points
that NIUs face in their digital journeys.
Let’s start with digital accounts and what they mean to NIUs.
The mental model of a digital account is often confusing for NIUs.
Without a clear understanding of what digital identities are, their purpose,
and the organizations behind them,
it’s not obvious why one needs an account to set up a smartphone,
and then is required to create a different account for a website or a social app.
Creating an account is especially tough for NIUs
and often requires help from others.
It’s time consuming and involves many steps
that are often difficult to follow and understand.
All this may feel even more complex if the account setup
is in a language they are not fluent in.
The text-heavy instructions on the screens,
the errors they encounter with technical words and complex actions
are hard to follow.
They often abandon moving ahead with additional product.
NIUs also feel overwhelmed with the amount of information
requested during setup tasks, primarily because it’s unclear to them
as to what benefit it brings while using the product.
They may even hesitate to disclose personal information,
such as their phone numbers, as it may be unclear to them
how this information will be used by the product.
For low literacy users, remembering alphanumeric passwords is difficult,
especially if the credentials were created by someone else helping them out,
like a friend or a family member.
Account credentials are also often shared between friends and family members
as the value of having a personal account is a mystery
and using an existing account quickly gets one started.
NIUs often don’t know what auto sign-in exactly is.
It’s a brilliant concept, but they often get signed out,
for example, due to sharing the device with others in the household
or when one factory resets the device due to low storage.
With many NIUs, failing to create accounts
or having to wait for help to create an account,
it translates to less usage, reduced discovery of key capabilities,
and so less value unlocked for these users.
It is recommended to simplify account creation
using familiar constructs,
such as phone number, as the basis of online identity.
Whenever possible, communicate clearly and visually
why specific information is being asked for and how it will be used.
In some cases, it may be important to ensure that critical product fixes or features
are available to all users whether or not they have a digital account.
Language is another area that NIUs have concerns with.
Imagine going to a restaurant and taking the menu to order the food
and that’s in a language that you don’t understand.
Many NIUs face the same sort of discomfort
when they see apps that are set in a language that they don't understand.
In places like India, where the majority of the population is multilingual,
devices are often set to English for novice users by more experienced users
or shopkeepers who set up the device for them.
So apps cannot rely on the system language settings to render content.
When users find it hard to understand what the apps are saying,
it’s always intimidating and kind of scary at times.
It is best to provide localization and the ability to change the language
within the app itself so that users can then experience your app
in the language they are most comfortable with.
When users don’t understand things that are on the screen,
it reduces the exploration and feature discovery drive the users have.
So many times, users stick to the user journey
that they know already and never explore
to find the new useful features you might be adding to your app.
Text-heavy dialogs or screens are something that these users don’t prefer.
Pay close attention to things like permission rational screens so that users
can clearly get all the information required to make informed decisions.
While localizing apps, most teams focus on accuracy of translation.
While this is important, one should also take care of the fact
that how well can this user understand what’s written on the screen.
Translation can also be very formal.
Earlier, Mrinal mentioned about a low literacy level,
and that means that some of this audience will have less exposure to formal words.
Let’s now take a look at some of the issues with voice experiences.
Voice has proven to be an increasingly popular interaction method,
especially in NBU countries, but there is a long way to go before voice
becomes ingrained in the day-to-day lives of novice internet users.
People find it challenging to communicate accurately through voice
because the device often doesn’t seem to understand their way of speaking.
Because of these accent and intonation problems,
the experience becomes weary over time,
often causing miscommunication and errors.
Due to this, for non-native, low-literacy English speakers,
interacting with one’s device via voice may feel excessively demanding
and also alienating when compared to those who can type.
So why is voice a big deal?
Voice has been a key enabler of simplification
for users with low digital confidence and for non-English language speakers.
Voice removes spelling complexities.
It makes the input process faster and easier for users who have lower literacy.
For NIUs, mixing languages is inherent in how they speak,
as many of them are multilingual by default.
Voice is preferred, as when typing, switching languages is cumbersome.
We have also seen that typing in regional and scripted languages
is often more complex and slower than in Latin characters,
again giving voice an advantage.
The majority of web content is text
and low-literate users struggle with written content.
Text-to-speech capability, along with online translations,
makes the internet more accessible.
On one hand, it’s important for users
who are multitasking and are in need of a hands-free experience,
while on the other, it enables many NIUs to effectively use their device,
which is not possible if information is not read out aloud to them.
As mentioned earlier, many NIUs have very little exposure
to internet concepts and iconography that we are so used to.
Simple things that many of us take for granted
as universally accepted are new things for them.
For example,
a trash can icon is automatically associated to the action delete,
but this might be a new concept for these users.
Because of this disconnect,
they clearly fear if their actions will have unintended consequences.
This also causes many of the edge cases
to occur more frequently than otherwise expected.
Like mentioned on the slide here, error should not feel like punishment.
Not only that, it should help the user understand what went wrong.
It should help the user understand how to fix the issue.
Don’t make the assumption that users always know the next action.
These are points in the user journey where they abandon your app.
Avoid being text-heavy when it comes to error information
and try and maintain a consistency across imagery and iconography used
when error conditions are depicted in your application.
This by no means is an exhaustive list and we have only talked about a few topics
that developers need to pay more attention to.
It’s important to understand the needs of NIUs
before finalizing on a strategy to build experiences for them.
I hope you find the session interesting
and will consider all these aspects when you build your apps in the future.
Thank you.