An Exploration in Interface Design for the Chinese Migrant Worker Population

Abstract
This sketch aims to better understand the process of designing products that fit the Chinese cultural framework, and keep attuned to China-specific design issues by addressing a specific social concern facing modern China. This project targets migrant working mothers living in China's urban centers and proposes a system for them to communicate with their children who remain at home in rural villages. A specific design problem is used as a vehicle to uncover more fundamental and broadly-applicable issues of designing for the Chinese. A design sketch of this system is presented, as are the more fundamental issues that our design process uncovered. These issues include difficulty in Chinese character input, interfaces on a Chinese scale, and the Chinese people's sense of privacy.

Keywords
Concept Design, Interaction Design, Input, Prototyping, User Research.

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First presented at the conference on Designing for User eXperience, November 3-5, 2005, San Francisco, CA