Research Seminar: Edith Luhanga

April 04, 2022

1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. CAT

Room A203

Designing behavior change applications for improved livelihoods: A human-centered approach

Abstract: Improved literacy, health, and economic productivity requires changing everyday habits and practices over a long period of time. Smartphones are ever-present in our day-to-day activities, and they hold a wealth of data about our habits and preferences. They can therefore be an effective tool for providing personalized just-in-time interventions that discourage negative behaviors and persuade engaging in positive ones. However, existing applications suffer from a high rate of user abandonment. In this seminar, we explore the probable causes of app abandonment based on industry data, academic surveys, and behavioral theories. I will first present results from participatory design sessions with users and domain experts on designing engaging weight loss and violence and abuse reporting applications, and the effectiveness of these applications when deployed in the wild. I will then introduce my current work on exploring the practices and habits of mobile money users in Africa and my future research plans in the digital financial inclusion and digital health domains.

Bio: Edith Luhanga is a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University Africa where she is working on a 6-country survey study on habits of mobile money habits that compromise their security and financial inclusion. Her overall research interests lie in the human-centered design of digital behavior change interventions for inclusive socio-economic development. Her work has spanned the domains of financial inclusion, health, privacy and security,
education, and agriculture. Edith holds a doctorate in Information Systems from Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, an MSc in Advanced Computing Science, and a BEng (Hons) in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK. Before joining CMU-Africa, she was a lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) where she taught ICTs and development, human-computer interactions and multimedia, and cyber ethics among others. She also co-wrote a 10-year grant on institutional capacity building through digital technologies and served as the project’s deputy leader for 4 years. In 2021, she was appointed Tanzania’s country representative on the UNESCO intergovernmental committee for drafting recommendations on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

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