Gurgaon idol

Abstract

In this paper, we describe several IVR usage and learnability insights that emerged from a singing competition held by a community radio station located in an urban community of low-income migrant workers. Our community radio station partner, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz, relies heavily on folk songs to build its content repository and develop a close rapport with its community; the station organized a competition called Gurgaon Idol, in which community members could call into an IVR system to record their songs, and vote to select the best songs. Our research yielded several insightful results on how to best solicit audio recordings on IVR, methods for crowdsourced voting on IVR, cultural preferences towards certain voting methods, how to help first-time IVR users learn the system, and practical tips to keep in mind when running such a competition. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to explore usability of voice user interfaces for recording audio and for crowdsourced voting over IVR systems.We begin with describing the context in which Gurgaon Ki Aawaz operates and their motivations for holding this competition. We then present an overview of the Gurgaon Idol competition, and specific IVR related research questions we are interested in answering. Section 4 describes in detail several usability tests we ran with over 80 subjects, and Section 5 describes the actual competition as it unfolded on the ground. Finally, a discussion section is presented on our reflections from running the competition.

A Real-Time IVR Platform for Community Radio

“…A significant gap exists in the exploration of IVR systems that exploit synchronous low-cost community-led health in resource-limited settings. In response, we designed and developed Sehat ki Vaani -a synchronous IVR platform that is inspired by the popularity of radio talk shows in India [13,34,35]. We provide in situ understandings of this approach to assisting individuals in rural India in better managing their health condition through community-led synchronous discussions.…”

“…These systems offer asynchronous communication, which within the context of healthcare allow for interactions such as the pushing of medication reminders, or tips about how self manage a condition [12,[27][28]30]. Inspired by the popularity of radio shows in resource-limited settings, and in particular India [13,34,35], as well as calls within the HCI community to explore digital health systems that allow for the local production and sharing of health content [9], we designed, developed and deployed Sehat ki Vaani ('HealthVoice' in English). Sehat ki Vaani is an interactive radio IVR platform that enables community members to create and host radio chat shows (radio hosts) through an Android application, as well as participate in radio shows (as listeners) through their own mobile phones (usually feature phones) without incurring any financial cost.…”

Co-designing a Billing System for Voice Services in RuralSouth Africa

“…IVRs are considered to be a limited form of communication, since they do not capture the extra linguistic features of the orality of the Xhosa culture [4]. This may explain why some participants struggle to follow audio prompts, although challenges with IVR have been documented in other scenarios [14]. Nevertheless, the use of local voices emulating the flow of a conversation (and the functionality for repeating messages) has been reported as being very valuable by future users of the system.…”

Experiences with the Introduction of AI-based Tools for Moderation Automation of Voice-based Participatory Media Forum

“…Users can call and listen to audio messages, and respond by recording their own message which can be published back on the forum. Voice forums have found wide application in citizen journalism [ 26 , 27 ], social accountability and grievance redressal [ 2 , 23 ], agricultural and livelihood information [ 30 ], behavior change communication [ 3 ], and cultural expression [ 19 ], among others.…”