A set of principles and UI prototypes for designing digital financial tools that empower the illiterate communities to confidently engage with their finances
Background
50 years ago, almost one quarter of youth lacked basic literacy skills compared to less than 10% in 2016. However, 750 million adults remained illiterate in 2017—1 out of 10 people in the world. Illiteracy is linked to poverty and inequality. Two-thirds of the 750 million illiterate adults are women. And another 152 million children are set to follow in their footsteps because they are not attending school.
Problem
The rise of SMS-, USSD-, and app-based tools improve financial independence and encourage healthy financial behaviors. However, all of our financial interfaces are words and numbers, preventing the huge swath of illiterate people from participating.
Opportunity
More people own smartphones than ever before. The number of smartphone users in the world is expected to pass the 3.5 billion mark by 2020.
Question
How might we empower designers and developers to design interfaces for illiterate and/or low-literate individuals?
Links
Prototype (pw: TalkLessDoMore)