Evaluating the accuracy of data collection on mobile phones: A study of forms, SMS, and voice
Name
Patnaik-2009-Evaluating the accuracy of data collection on mobile phones A study of forms, SMS, and voice.pdf
Size
7.74 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e67c5e108adcb3800c8adbc5b3a23963
Author(s)
Patnaik, Somani
Brunskill, Emma
Thies, William
Date Issued
April 2009
Journal
International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), 2009
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Citation
Patnaik, S., E. Brunskill, and W. Thies. “Evaluating the accuracy of data collection on mobile phones: A study of forms, SMS, and voice.” Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), 2009 International Conference on. 2009. 74-84. © 2009 IEEE.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
While mobile phones have found broad application in reporting health, financial, and environmental data, there has been little study of the possible errors incurred during mobile data collection. This paper provides the first (to our knowledge) quantitative evaluation of data entry accuracy on mobile phones in a resource-poor setting. Via a study of 13 users in Gujarat, India, we evaluated three user interfaces: 1) electronic forms, containing numeric fields and multiple-choice menus, 2) SMS, where users enter delimited text messages according to printed cue cards, and 3) voice, where users call an operator and dictate the data in real-time. Our results indicate error rates (per datum entered) of 4.2% for electronic forms, 4.8% for SMS, and 0.45% for voice. These results caused us to migrate our own initiative (a tuberculosis treatment program in rural India) from electronic forms to voice, in order to avoid errors on critical health data. While our study has some limitations, including varied backgrounds and training of participants, it suggests that some care is needed in deploying electronic interfaces in resource-poor settings. Further, it raises the possibility of using voice as a low-tech, high-accuracy, and cost-effective interface for mobile data collection.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICTD.2009.5426700
