Making Software Humane: The Effects of Affective and Anthropomorphism on the Adoption of an M-Health Application

Abstract

With the proliferation of mobile devices, provision of M-health care services has become feasible even in the remotest villages of Africa. Research however shows that many M-health initiatives have not been adopted and used effectively especially in rural communities. Some of the factors contributing to this range from a lack of knowledge with regard the use of technology, literacy challenges, possible fear of technology, to a lack of information regarding these interventions. In this paper, we demonstrate that an initiative designed to recognize usability as its core function plays a critical role in the use and adoption of M-health interventions in rural communities. Two versions of an M-health intervention were developed and two interface design principles that may have an impact on users’ emotions applied, namely affective design and anthropomorphism. Using the Sethakeng rural community in the Northern Cape (South Africa) as the case study, we were able to determine the extent to which both anthropomorphism and affective design influence the adoption of an M-Health application. Further, the research revealed that because of its ability to include human-like qualities to non-living objects, anthropomorphism is a more effective method for designing M-Health applications targeting rural communities.