Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution

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Richard directs the Centre for Digital Development (CDD), the largest academic group dedicated to research on digital and development. The Centre's research outputs can be found in two edited working paper series; one on " Digital Development", one on " iGovernment", and the ICT4D blog.

What other improvements would you suggest for the platform, regarding both content and technical aspects?Let’s start by looking at the word they all have in common: “reality.” What does “reality” mean in the context of AR, MR, VR and XR? What is Reality? The authors undertook a six-month case study (cf. Walsham, 2006) to explore users' perceptions of an open e-learning platform, and the “design–reality gaps” that emerged where the features developed by designers did not align with users' goals. Case study research was selected as an appropriate methodology, as it enabled the authors to explore the meanings and behaviours of users and designers, as well as the contexts in which they act. Concepts from affordance theory were empirically analysed, and potential extensions or modifications to their relationships were explored within the context of open e-learning (cf. Ridder, 2017). Our study centres on ECO2, a 36-month sustainability project funded by the EU Commission's Horizon 2020 programme. The aim of the project was to increase citizens' awareness of their energy consumption and improve energy efficiency in households through open e-learning. This is achieved by developing an open e-learning platform called ACT4ECO to help European citizens implement concrete actions for saving energy (see Figure 2). In total, the project aimed to reach 10,000 citizens across Europe who would sign up to the platform and learn how to complete actions that will increase their energy efficiency. The learning paths proposed by the open e-learning platform aim to support each user in climbing the “ladder of change” from “Motivation” to “Exploration” and finally to “Action”, where they make more environmentally sustainable choices ( Kahma et al., 2021).

Country context gaps: an ‘off the shelf’ approach which is commonly adopted is set to fail. Infrastructure and mindsets are very different across the world. It is likely that a system designed for New Delhi will not suit Johannesburg. We also find that both the synthesis and emphasis affordances facilitated users' internalisation of knowledge and helped with managing their goal expectations ( Bower, 2008; Deng et al., 2010; Lin, 2011). These affordances may in turn support improved information quality for both knowledgeable and less knowledgeable users, a key antecedent of user satisfaction in e-learning ( Cidral et al., 2018; Esteban-Millat et al., 2014; Mohammadi, 2015; Sun et al., 2008). Results also show how the related affordances of learning pathway and clarity support ease of use by ensuring the user feels a sense of orientation in the platform and understands the purpose of actions. This ensures that users can concentrate on what they are doing (to the exclusion of other stimuli) and recover from any negative critical incidents that might arise ( Deng et al., 2010; Esteban-Millat et al., 2014; Pallud and Monod, 2010). Lastly, we see how the goal-planning affordance transforms user learnings into possibilities for action, once content is tailored to the resources available to users ( Strong et al., 2014). User perceptions are tightly bound to the interaction between IT features and their goal expectations ( Deng et al., 2010; Pallud and Monod, 2010). We also find that users may also derive symbolic expressions (e.g. “helpful”, “useful”) through goal-planning which they in turn attach to an open e-learning platform ( Markus and Silver, 2008; Pallud and Monod, 2010). This goes beyond technical considerations alone and requires equal consideration of users' positive and negative emotive responses to an e-learning platform ( Pallud and Monod, 2010). Richard and CDD colleagues are researching implications and good practices in digital-transformation-for-development; understanding what it means to be transformative in a digital development context. How would you rate your level of energy-awareness? (e.g. interest in home energy use, energy bills)

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