Providing Market Information for Ethiopian Farmers: Extending Participatory Design

In a developing country like Ethiopia, marketing of
agricultural products is influenced by local, socioeconomic,
cultural and IT infrastructure characteristics.
ICT-based agriculture information systems have been
proposed to support farmers with market information.
However, such initiatives have often failed to provide
useful information in an adequate form for farmers in
remote areas. Participatory Design (PD) assumes to be
effective approach to overcome these challenges.
However, due to its origin in the western countries, the
capability of users, motivation and desire to participate
and availability of resources are often taken for granted.
This work identifies challenges for applying PD in rural
Ethiopia and proposes method for ‘Early-Stage’ of PD.