Empathy-Driven Mobile App Development (MAD) without Coding

Abstract

One of the challenges facing resource-constrained environments is the proliferation of smartphones, the lack of skills to develop mobile apps, the high cost of professional mobile app development and the fact that there are no interventions to change the tide. Both communities and businesses, particularly the small- to medium-scale businesses have had two options: a) to use generic apps which are often not customisable, or b) not to use the technology. Globally, there are two emerging phenomena: the citizen developers and the mobile app development platform (MADP) with little or no programming code. Neither the citizen developer nor MADP are new but they have reached levels of maturity at which their potential in resource constrained contexts makes logical sense. The potential lies in empowering ordinary citizens to design and develop mobile applications that address their specific needs without being constrained by the lack of technical skills. This chapter presents a model to empower citizen developers to acquire mobile app design and development skills to develop mobile apps with few or no code development platforms. The chapter explores an empathy-driven mobile app development (empathy-driven MAD). MADs are safe and fun, they are called ‘digital sandpits’. The empathy-driven MAD without code has been shown to enhance creativity within multi-disciplinary teams and allow members of such teams to act as citizen developers who rapidly build apps, obtain feedback from ‘clients’ (peers) thereby shifting the dispositions of both the citizen developer and their community (world). This chapter uses Gidden’s structuration theory and an empathy map to exploit both tacit and discursive knowledge in the design of mobile apps and then using low-cost no-code MADPs learn quickly about user needs and build useable apps for communities.