Title
Rural HCI Research: Definitions, Distinctions, Methods, and Opportunities
Abstract
HCI researchers are increasingly conducting research in rural communities. This paper interrogates how rurality has been treated in previous HCI research conducted in developed and high-income countries. We draw from research outside of HCI to suggest how we can effectively engage with rurality in research. We present results of a scoping review of HCI literature that asks: 1) How do HCI researchers define rurality?; 2) How do the unique characteristics of rural communities enter into study findings?; 3) What methods are used in rural research?; and 4) Where has rural research been conducted? More than twice as many rural HCI articles have been conducted in low-income and/or developing countries than in high-income and/or developed countries. HCI researchers rarely define rurality, and when they do, they primarily define it using descriptive rather than sociocultural or symbolic definitions. Rural research findings have primarily addressed infrastructure and distance/geographic isolation as unique rural characteristics, while qualitative, observational, and cross-sectional methods dominate this research. There are further opportunities for HCI research to more productively advance understanding of what rurality is, and how it matters for sociotechnical systems.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1145/3359298
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Keywords
Field
DocType
geography, rural computing, rural hci, rural studies, scoping review
Sociology,Engineering ethics
Journal
Volume
Issue
Citations 
3
CSCW
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jean Hardy1284.26
Susan P. Wyche238927.40
Tiffany C. Veinot310116.24