Scaling Mobile Applications Using Interactive-Device User Training

As smartphones become cheaper and more ubiquitous, they are increasingly used in global development projects for data collection, processing, and computation-intensive tasks. To sustainably implement such solutions, the costs of deployment, overall training, and long-term usage must be considered. In this paper, we examine the training process and sustainability of mobile application for Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI). We first report a comparison of application Mobile-IMCI with the incumbent paper-based module on accuracy, time, and performance in both qualitative and quantitative analyses. We then report an initial exploration of techniques to minimize training time and costs by enabling users to learn applications via a method called "Interactive-Device Training" or IDT. We show that IDT can yield significant improvement in training and learning outcomes with reduced error rates. We conclude that such device-enabled training can reduce the need for explicit training and thus create a more sustainable development approach.