Claim Mobile: When to Fail a Technology

摘要

This paper looks back at the deployment of Claim Mobile, a smartphone-based data collection application developed for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Southwest Uganda. This NGO subsidizes health facilities by paying for medical services on the basis of claims submitted after the patient consultation, targeting treatment of 99,000 clients between 2006-2011. I successfully tested Claim Mobile in Summer 2008, processing 35 claims over two weeks, and then discontinued it six months later, when it became apparent that integration and scale-up of the technology would be problematic for the NGO. In addition, many issues we hoped to address through technology had been addressed through program management changes instead. I find that a) the context motivating the technology changed over time, b) simpler solutions can be as effective as new technologies, and c) prioritizing the needs of the NGO required abandoning the deployment of Claim Mobile. Thus this paper presents the value of learning from failure in the process of designing for users in developing regions.