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Home is not Egumbo: Language, Identity and Web Design
Hilma N. Aludhilu†
Department of Information Technology
University of Namibia
Windhoek, Namibia
aludhiluhilma@gmail.com
Nicola J. Bidwell
Faculty of Information Technology
International University of Management
Windhoek, Namibia
nic.bidwell@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
We analyse some of the ways that English shapes technology
production in Namibia by critically reflecting on translations in
designing the first fully bilingual Oshindonga website. We show
that English, and symbols linked to English, perform in
technologists’ lifeworlds, felt-experiences and identities. Our
reflections add to literature on mismatches between ‘universal’
paradigms and local ways of knowing. More significantly, they
inspire deeper exploration of how language constrains design
possibilities. Design research rarely remarks on linguistics in
constructing technology or technologists. Yet, relationships
between English and technology production exclude and inhibit the
involvement of social, intellectual and emotional capitals in
innovation.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Human-centered computing~HCI design and evaluation methods
• Human-centered computing~Empirical studies in HCI • Social
and professional topics~Cultural characteristics
KEYWORDS
English, language, identity, Namibia, Africa, postcolonial,
translation, internationalization, localization, lifeworld
ACM Reference format:
Hilma N. Aludhilu and Nicola J. Bidwell. 2018. Home is not Egumbo:
Language, Identity and Web. In 2nd African Conference for Human
Computer Interaction Proceedings. December 3 – 7, 2018, Windhoek,
Namibia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3283458.3283460
1 INTRODUCTION
In the past decade, technologists in Africa have produced new
design methods and applications by adapting to, or re-working,
technology production paradigms that originate from outside the
continent. In this paper, we explore some of the ways that the
international language of English shapes engagement in technology
production paradigm and, in turn, technologists’ identities. We
adopt an auto-ethnographic approach in reflecting on translations
during the design of a bilingual English-Oshindonga website to
market Nakambale Museum in Namibia. The museum marks the
site where the Bible was first translated into a Namibian language,
and exhibits architecture and items of both historic Owambo and
missionary cultures. This is an interesting design space not only
because it created the first fully Oshindonga website, but also
because it draws attention to language and identity.
We begin by relating literature on localising websites to how
multilingual and cross-cultural design is embedded in a certain
technology production paradigm. Then we synthesise literature on
the effect of this paradigm on the identities of technologists in
Africa, and suggest it implicates English language. We end our
review by outlining relationships between English and localisation
studies in Namibia to set the stage for our motivations in exploring
language and identity in the designing a website for Nakambale
Museum.
1.1 Localisation and Translation
The size of the African population that is not fluent in an
international language has propelled multinational ICT companies
to localise software and applications. For instance, Google
Translate and Microsoft Office offer 14 and 12 African languages,
respectively, while some Chinese companies produce exclusively
for Africa by localising mobile software and applications into local
languages. Cost, however, restricts localisation to the languages of
a few dominant tribes and excludes the rest of Africa’s 1800
languages [53]. This occurs even in much globalised domains like
tourism, where intercontinental comparisons show that Africa
offers the least multilingual support [74].
Multinational ICT companies and experts in web design agree that
localisation must be integral to product cycles, and cross-cultural
design must be considered from the start of design and not simply
translate content into another language [51, 41, 453]. Content
analysis of tourism websites shows that a lack of user-centered
design and interactivity in web development, to account for
different cultures, causes poor usability and unwanted cross-
cultural effects in content and functions [75]. Localisation is not
only about making the functionality and about content of products
amenable to different languages and cultures, but also about
transporting certain logics and epistemologies about technology,
design and interactions [29]. User-centred design methods, such as
field studies, user workshops and interviews, models of users or
think aloud protocols, are all situated in a certain technology
production paradigm. In other words, localisation purposively
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AfriCHI '18, December 3–7, 2018, Windhoek, Namibia
© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6558-1/18/12…$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3283458.3283460
AfriCHI '18, December 3–7, 2018, Windhoek, Namibia
H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
determines domains, processes and solutions in non-local ways
and, thus, translation is always partial.
In the last ten years, various approaches from localising web-design
and design thinking, to start-ups and co-working dev labs, have
been promoted as replicable across Africa [13]. Sometimes the
intent in applying a so called ‘universal’ paradigm is to enculturate
an ideology, for instance, advocates of Africa’s many tech hubs
assert they create human capacities that better engage with
international technology innovation [13]. Yet, ‘universal’ design
templates are valorised even when local technology entrepreneurs
integrate their everyday engagement in their local settings, as
shown by Avle et al. [7] studies in Ghana. Certainly, linking
technology production in Africa to western paradigms attracts
foreign investment and offers local employment [13]. However,
Csikszentmihalyi et al. [13] in the survey of people involved in
technology production in 26 Africa countries suggests
entanglement in the ‘universal’ paradigm fosters a culture of
mimicry that contributes to failure. Failure results not just, because
users and use contexts differ, but because technology production in
Africa is situated differently in global socio-economic systems than
it is in regions in which the ‘universal’ paradigm emerged [13, 10].
In fact, western actors indirectly or directly profit from Africa’s
tech hubs [13], and up to 90% of disclosed investments go to start-
ups founded by Europeans or North Americans [54].
1.2 Technology Production, Identity and
Language in Africa
Whether technologists in Africa accept, resist or adapt design
templates, the ‘universal’ technology production paradigm
performs in their identities [7]. Observations in Accra, for instance,
suggest that technology entrepreneurs access special kinds of
places. The tools that technologists need, like laptops and smart-
phones, are more accessible to wealthier people [13] and, across the
continent, technology initiatives tend to be located in more affluent
urban areas and offer opportunities that are unavailable elsewhere
[13]. Such settings may contribute to creating products that are used
mostly by affluent urbanites or benefit elites in other ways [13]. All
in all, access to these places tend to validate technology
entrepreneurs as special kinds of people [7]. Technologists in
Africa do not, of course, passively acquire identities forged by
western interests and technology ‘universals’. To the contrary,
technologists in Africa adapt their identities actively, by creating
transnational networks through their own, and their products’,
virtual and physical mobilities, and securing access to social and
economic resources [7] by responding to a technology culture that
is replete with racist and imperialist superiorities [4].
Linguistic issues count amongst the effects of ‘universal’
paradigms on technologists’ identities [7], not least because
African languages are rarely used in technology education or
computing applications [51]. For instance, all 116 interviews that
Csikszentmihalyi et al. [23] conducted were in English, French or
Portuguese [13] and, while many of the participants they
interviewed worked in Anglophone regions, we estimate that these
countries are also home to over 850 local languages. We are unable
to discern the language used by technologists in Accra from Avle
et al. [6, 7] accounts however, as English dominates Ghana’s
business, education and government, we surmise that when they
referred to ‘the language of innovation’ they also meant, implicitly,
that this language was English. In fact, some 35 years after Achebe
and Thiong'o deliberated on how “best to make the borrowed
tongues carry the weight of our African experience” [69], Ghana is
one of many African countries that continues to debate the merits
and problems of English in national identity, reputation and
empowerment. Across Africa, politicians, linguists and indigenous
groups, alike, raise concerns about the social and economic impacts
of language hegemonies and extermination [42]. In fact, a decision
to change from English as the medium of instruction in Ghanaian
schools, two years ago, was recently reversed to ensure students are
“globally competitive” [43]. The technology sectors of Anglophone
countries lead in sub-Saharan Africa [59]. This is perhaps expected
since half of all the homepages of the most visited websites globally
are in English [58, 73], over a third of programming languages are
based on English, and there are thousands of Anglophone online
technology forums. The YouTube presence of African Englishes
illustrates that language has changed to express African experience,
as Achebe [1] hoped. Yet, an online survey of 70 people in six
African countries also shows that common natural language
applications, like Siri, poorly handle African Englishes [3]. Given
technology production’s western-centred, racist and elitist culture
[13], it is likely that a technologist’s success demands Anglophone
cultural knowledge and using English in certain ways [32]. This
may affect relationships between technologists’ and the 40% of
Africa’s 1.2 billion population who do not speak any English [2,
17]. In Africa, English is often associated with elites [63]. Further,
as Nguigi wa Thiong’o [70] maintains, African people’s identities
are profoundly shaped by “disassociation of the language of
conceptualisation, of thinking, of formal education, of mental
development, from the language of daily interaction in the home
and in the community” [70]. Indeed, while technologies that
support audio are widely adapted to the languages, conversational
and narrative forms and genres of African oral traditions, their
platforms are embedded with technology ‘universals’.
1.3 English in Namibia’s Technological Thinking
We reflect on localisation in Namibia, where English was chosen
as the sole official language in 1990 when the country was
emancipated. Since the 1950s, English had spread as the language
of the anti-apartheid campaign and had assisted in unifying the
nation’s different groups in their fight for liberation [20]. English
was chosen from twelve local [37] and four colonist languages
because it was the only language that met all eight post-liberation
criteria: unity, acceptability, familiarity, feasibility, wider
communication, science and technology, United Nations and Pan-
Africanism [20]. Discussion over the past 10 years, however,
suggests that English has not achieved all that was hoped,
especially with respect to science and technology.
English is the language of instruction in Namibian schools and in
tertiary institutions, yet it is only spoken by a minority of people at
home [20]. Indeed Afrikaans may be more widely used as lingua
franca in everyday business in Windhoek, the capital city, and the
central and southern regions. Children in rural schools are often
taught in a local language until Grade 3, which disadvantages them
from Grade 4 onwards when English is the medium of instruction
[30, 34, 55]. Fluency in English often reflects other inequalities in
Namibia [33], which has one of the world’s most unequal income
distributions, and where some 85% of impoverished households are
rural [66]. Economic and educational inequality compromises unity
in African countries [52].
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There are also concerns about the consequences of excluding
Namibian languages in advancing science and technology. English
is a pre-requisite for enrolling in higher education, which can both
exclude potential students [47, 56] and compromise developing
human capacity [55]. Namibia has diverse international relations,
and many Namibians undertake higher studies in China, Russia,
Cuba or Brazil [30, 34]; yet, English enables engaging in
international technology research and industry, such as through
Google Dev Groups, Facebook Developer Circles, and PyCon [18].
Frydman [20] argues that Namibians would be more driven and
able to contribute to national development if “indigenous languages
were developed to incorporate scientific and technical terminology
and put to use in these fields” [20]. Like others in Africa [28], our
experiences suggest that excluding local languages from
technology constrains the terminology to teach about technology.
Technologies are rarely localised for Namibian languages. English
is used for formal representation in Namibia, in government and
business websites, and to promote and fund-raise for technology
projects. It was not until 2017 that a local bank introduced
Oshiwambo, Otjiherero and German to the interface of autoteller
machines [48]. Indeed, while 49% of Namibians speak one of
Oshiwambo’s eight dialects [24], as far as we can ascertain, there
have been just two websites in its written standards and neither
were fully localised: Jehovah Witness, in Oshindonga and
Oshikwanyama www.jw.org/kj/, www.jw.org/ng/, and
transport4people in Oshikwanyama mixed with English. Namibian
languages are represented on the internet in user-generated content
but not in the structure of websites and applications. Searches for
Oshiwambo languages, for instance, yield 300 returns on YouTube
and 11 Facebook groups in Oshindonga; and, of course, there are
numerous messages in Oshiwambo using chat apps like WhatsApp.
There are also 48 entries in The Ndonga Wikipedia Incubator [62],
though their volume is unchanged in the five years since Gallert
posted concerns about the online authority of Namibian languages
Wikipedia’s under-representation
1.4 Localisation and the Identity of Technologists
in Namibia
This paper reflects on relationships between identity, English and
technology production. Fluency in English is likely to mark identity
in Namibia more profoundly than in countries, with different
postcolonial relations and more equal access to education, the
internet and travel. Finnish, for instance, constitutes 3% of the
world’s websites [74], despite common fluency in English as a
second language amongst Finns [16], which reflects deliberate
linguistic emancipation in the small country two hundred years ago.
Further, in contrast to Namibia, where overall equality is indexed
at 0.42 on Gini, and education inequality is at 25, Finland is indexed
at 0.84 and 2.0, respectively [64].
Much research has sought to localise technologies to the practices
of local communities in Namibia by addressing disconnects
between western and local knowledges and values. These studies
often explore tensions between design and local “cultural logics”
and “cultural epistemologies” [29], or the collective ways local
groups learn and know about the world. For instance, reflecting on
outreach workshops, Gallert [23] critiques the infrastructures of
Wikipedia that require certain narrative and genres, which distort
local meanings and impose concepts about reliability and
verifiability unsuited to many Namibian community practices.
Namibians found English Wikipedia difficult to practice with, so
Gallert used Wikipedia Incubator to encourage content in
Otjiherero; however, his efforts did not yield new editors or articles
[22]. A range of work illustrates difficulties in translating standard
interface schema and usability criteria. For instance, some
Namibian user groups did not assess “usable” against western
constructs of efficacy, efficiency and satisfaction [71], and others
did not interpret a visual metaphor for “delete” in the way its
western designer intended [72].
Many design studies in Namibia are motivated to represent people
in their own languages to preserve local knowledge. Stanley et al.
[60], for instance, localised crowd sourcing to enable rural
ovaHerero and ovaHimba communities to gather, store and classify
their traditional knowledge [60]. Their tablet-based system enables
users to represent their homesteads and rural scenarios by sending
requests for 3D models to graphic designers via the internet. Like
other studies in Namibia, the design processes involved users in
eliciting requirements, and producing and validating content.
Indeed, in Namibian design research there is consensus that
technologists must continuously negotiate meanings with the
communities targeted for design [23, 60]. Analyses of such
negotiations tend to focus on contrasting outsider and insider
cultural perspectives [31], not on the way technology, language and
identity are entangled. For instance, Stanley et al. [60] report that
community members appointed a youth able to both use a computer
and speak English to mediate with designers.
In other studies, technologists have some proficiency in the
community’s language, though they may not often use it in
computing contexts. In fact, technologists with rural ties often
pursue localisation projects in order to practice home languages
that they are no longer or not yet fluent in. However, reports of
these endeavours do not state the languages used by technologists
to conceptualise processes and solutions, or the ways that
technologists’ identities are situated in relationships between
technology and language. Indeed, it is difficult to disentangle
English and technology in considering the ways they work in
people’s identities. Gallert [22] reports that some participants in
Wikipedia outreach workshops were embarrassed to write English
in public and under supervision, fearing they might make mistakes.
Most commentary about rural Namibians’ fears in interacting with
technology and their achievements as technologists, however, tends
to focus on rural people’s limited exposure to computers at school
and in villages [26], and not on the ways, this links to English.
2 REFLECTING ON LANGUAGE AND
IDENTITY
We explore identity and language in designing a website for
Nakambale Museum. Some literature refers to the identities of
African researchers in HCI [8, 31, 68], but none specifically to
relations between technologists’ identities and linguistics of the
‘language of technology’. In Namibia, web design and
development is tethered to English, even when activities occur in
other languages, mostly because web-users relate the concept of the
web to English and web-designers learn their skills in English [51].
In 2016 Hilma (author-1), a 22-year old Oshindonga-speaking
technologist, decided to design a website for the museum after
reading that it is struggling to get visitors [67]. The museum is
about 5kms from her family home in Olukonda and, when she was
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young, she would hang out at the museum and sometimes interact
with visitors. Between 2010 and 2016, Hilma specifically visited
the museum three times to view items closely, including after she
began undergraduate studies in Windhoek, 800Km to the south.
Like many Namibian technologists, she seeks to use her knowledge
and experience to raise awareness about technologies, and develop
technologies that contribute to Namibia’s advancement.
Designing a website for this specific museum is an intriguing space
for reflecting on technology, language and identity. Nakambale
Museum is housed in a former Finnish mission station, where the
Bible was first translated into a Namibian language. It was opened
as a National Monument in May 1995, as both an archive for the
Finnish Missionary society and a resource for Namibians to learn
about their political and cultural history, such as about the kings of
the North. Signs at Nakambale are in Oshindonga as well as in
English, which is rare in public spaces in Namibia, and illustrate its
specific linguistic heritage. In 1885, assisted by a local speaker, a
missionary at the station began translating the Gospels of Mathew
and Mark into Oshindonga for devotional purposes [49]. The
missionary, Dr Matti Rautanen, had made effort to learn the local
language and culture and address many problems in cultural
differences and contextualizing the message [49]. He learnt to
translate by hearing people speak, requesting they guide him in the
correct way to express words and tell him their meanings, and by
creating his own new words [49]. He used a piece of furniture, now
exhibited at the museum, from which he hung lists of Oshindonga
phrases that needed confirmation by native speakers. Today, 97%
of Namibians are Christian [65] and some of the country’s largest
churches grew from Finnish mission work. Christianity plays a
major role in the lives of Owambo people, indeed the 'Old Church'
near the museum hosts many 'traditional Christian weddings',
where urban people perform desires for a sense of 'rooted-ness',
while local rural people perform interest in presenting themselves
as cosmopolitan citizens of a modern world [19].
3 METHODS
Hilma was solely responsible for all design and development
activities and decisions. As part of a commitment to reflective
design [29], Nic (author-2), a foreign researcher with 9-years of
experience of technology practice in Namibia, provoked Hilma’s
reflexivity on language and identity. Hilma regularly wrote notes
and reflected about linguistic and other translations, across the
entire process. Thus, here we describe both design activities and
research methods together. We applied user-centred design
methods in creating a prototype that reflected aawambo ideas but
represented them in English. This aligns with both dominant
approaches to internationalisation, and Namibia’s national
language. Then we localised the prototype in Oshindonga and
evaluated the bilingual website face-to-face and online. We adapted
methods as reflections yielded insights. For instance, we recruited
Oshindonga-speaking people with varied familiarity with websites
and fluency in English to participate in design activities as relations
between language and technology emerged.
3.1 Participants
Face-to-face design activities involved 22 women and 14 men,
comprising 5 overseas visitors and 31 Oshindonga-speakers,
including two museum staff. Hilma knew four participants because
they studied at her university and ten as they live in her village. We
recruited the rest at the museum or by snowball sampling. We
included different people for different activities in order to explore
the widest range of experiences and interactions that might shape
the website’s potential impact. To reflect target users, participants
had varied familiarity with the museum, websites and tourism.
We involved participants from Olukonda as the museum represents
their history and seeks to attract local visitors. We elicited
requirements with museum staff MS1, who works on the museum’s
administration using a computer in her office, and MS2 who does
not use computers. We also included five people who live in
Olukonda and five from Olukonda who live in Windhoek, all of
whom knew the museum exists. Four living in Olukonda had been
to it, mostly when it hosted an event, but only one in Windhoek had
visited. In localising the English prototype to Oshindonga, all eight
participants knew the museum exists, but only four had visited.
Participants in face-to-face evaluations included two who had
visited the museum, four who knew and four who did not know the
museum exists.
MS1 and MS2 speak Oshindonga, and MS1 is also fluent in English
and Finnish and knows some German. Other participants who
articulated needs in Olukonda mainly use Oshindonga and those in
Windhoek use English and sometimes Afrikaans. The former are
high-school educated and owned cell phones but did not use the
web much, while those living in Windhoek are university educated,
use smartphones and are familiar with computers and the web. In
localisation in Olukonda, five participants were university-
educated, bilingual in Oshindonga-English, and used computers
and the web; three participants did not have tertiary qualifications
and were less fluent in English, although two had interacted with
websites in English on their phones. We evaluated prototypes in
Windhoek with participants who are familiar with computers,
websites and cell phones, and bilingual in Oshiwambo-English, and
used Afrikaans.
3.2 Articulating Needs
We began generating requirements for the website using
ethnographic methods in a two-day visit to Olukonda. Hilma
observed, and took notes, as museum staff, MS1 and MS2, who
give tours of the museum, explained exhibits to visitors. Hilma first
observed and took notes as MS1 guided Nic and two Mexican
companions around the museum, describing its history and
explaining exhibits.
We interviewed MS1 and MS2 for 20-mins each, mostly in
Oshindonga but sometimes mixed with English. MS1 briefly
described the museum’s achievements, operation and sections
referring to pamphlets written in Oshindonga, English and Finnish.
MS1 also referred to posters, displayed in her office, about events
and activities the museum hosts to generate more income to sustain
itself, and to the visitor’s book to illustrate falling visitor numbers.
The book, which began a decade ago, shows that there are less local
than foreign visitors. For instance, in 424 records since May 2015,
933 visitors were from Namibia, including 178 learners from 10
different schools, while 1422 visitors were from 29 other countries,
mostly (58%) Finland, the Netherlands and Germany. MS1
described visitors’ characteristics and common questions that, she
said, a website could address. She regarded a website as means for
the museum to market itself to more visitors and mentioned a few
websites in a non-specific way. She also proposed ideas about the
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content of the museum website, including its main sections and
types of images, and explained that she did not want the website to
provide so much detail that the public would not want to visit the
actual museum. MS1 also emphasised that an Oshindonga-English
bilingual website would enable local people, who are not fluent in
English, to be informed about the museum.
We also observed five German visitors as they toured the museum
for about three hours, and then interviewed two men and a woman.
Next, we interviewed four women and a man, aged 30 to 53 years,
in their homes near the museum, for 10-mins each, to determine
what information and type of images they thought should be on the
website. They knew about websites and had interacted with a few
written in English, including Facebook and a soccer website. We
asked their opinion about a museum website, the information and
images that should be included and languages used. Before leaving
the museum, we recorded entries from the visitor’s book across two
years, took 80 photos and drew a map of the rooms in the museum.
On returning to Windhoek Hilma interviewed another two men and
three women, aged 22 to 50 years, from Olukonda who live in
Windhoek for work or university where they mostly speak and
write English in these settings. As for participants living in
Olukonda, we asked about their experiences with the museum and
websites, their opinions about a website for the museum, and
content to include.
Hilma transcribed audio recordings and handwritten notes made
during interviews. Audio-recordings were mainly in Oshindonga,
yet most of Hilma’s notes for interviews, including those in which
she spoke Oshindonga, were in English because it was quicker to
write. She only wrote in Oshindonga in interviews when explicit
translation from English to Oshindonga occurred or certain
Oshindonga words were always used. After Hilma had transcribed
audios to text in the language participants spoke, she read the data
to get a general sense. Then she translated and analysed all data in
English, because the research was done in a university where all
study is in English and she usually refers to technology in English.
We also examined the pamphlets to which MS1 referred in English.
Detailed analysis open coded English transcripts, using short
phrases about topics, grouped codes into themes, and found
patterns. The resulting summary in English articulated functional
and non-functional requirements.
3.3 Designing and Localising Prototypes
Using the English summary of requirements, and drawing on prior
web-design experience and guides written in English, we designed
and developed the first prototype. First, we designed the homepage,
navigation bar and content structure. ‘About’ on the navigation
menu links to two pages, which introduce the museum and display
images of exhibits in a gallery. ‘Attractions’ links to 6 pages that
describe the mission house, church, traditional homestead,
campsites, the craft shop and nearest places of interest. Five more
tabs on the navigation bar ‘Working hours’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Bookings’,
and ‘News’ link to separate pages. We presented 38 of photos of
the museum, based on participants’ suggestions in requirements
interviews and appear attractive and suitable, and some that MS1
had given specifically in a gallery page. Hilma mostly thought in
English during the process, especially when dealing with English
content, but also while deciding about structural elements and
layout.
To localise the prototype to the setting in which the museum is
situated we recorded 30-min interviews with four men and four
women, aged 20 to 45 years, in Olukonda over 4 days. First,
participants viewed the English prototype for 10-mins and gave
opinions about a prospective Oshindonga version. Hilma navigated
and explained the content of all pages to Oshindonga-only
participants, and bilingual participants familiar with websites
explored the prototype themselves and asked questions. Next, we
asked participants for their opinions about what the Oshindonga
website should achieve, how it should differ from the English
version, the number, layout and content of pages, and words used
in navigation. We explained alternative navigation options but
participants did not suggest other designs. We also presented a file
of 30 photos, which we took based on participants’ ideas in eliciting
requirements but were unused in the prototype, and asked
participants to select alternative images for different places in the
Oshindonga website, explain their preferences and recount stories
related to objects in the images. Bilingual participants translated the
information from English to Oshindonga. Finally, we interpreted
user-experience goals from what participants’ said they sought for
the Oshindonga website. We explained that interactions have
emotional qualities and asked participants about the user
experiences they sought, prompting with questions like how do you
want the person who visits the website to feel or think and how
must the images make you feel or react to them?
We transcribed recordings in the language participants spoke and
Hilma’s handwritten notes that were, again, mostly in English. We
translated everything in Oshindonga to English for data analysis,
and open coded and grouped codes into themes in English. Next,
we used the Oshindonga transcripts to translate the English
prototype’s content into Oshindonga and incorporated images that
participants had selected most often. We created 13 pages as
participants felt that there should be the same number as the English
site. Hilma mostly thought in Oshindonga during the process,
especially when organising and interacting with items that relate to
her culture. Lastly, a professional Oshindonga-English translator
corrected grammar and advised on words better suited to technical
contexts; for instance, richer Oshindonga for instructions in forms,
such as edhina lyoshilongo, ‘name of country’ not oshilongo,
‘country’; and onomola yongodhi, ‘cellphone number’, not
ongodhi, ‘cell’.
3.4 Evaluating the Prototypes
We evaluated the communicative ability of the Oshindonga
prototype according to user-interactions, not linguistic accuracy [4].
All participants, aged 18 to 50 years, lived in Windhoek, six
interviews were in English mixed with Oshindonga, and two were
fully in English. For the first 10-mins, participants explored the
Oshindonga prototype and interacted with each page’s
functionality. Then we asked about their experience, such as how
does the website make you feel and why does it make you feel that
way; what sort of things go through your mind when interacting
with the website; and, what feelings and memories do the images
trigger and why. We also asked where participants were lost on the
prototype and what sections or items led to that. To evaluate
usability we used Nielsen’s Methodology [50] and asked
participants to complete five tasks: booking a visit, finding contact
details, opening hours, fees and sending a message to the museum.
Once again, Hilma transcribed in the language participants spoke,
then translated transcripts and coded in English.
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H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
We trailed the bilingual Oshindonga-English prototype for 25 days
and promoted the link, https://nakambale-museum.netlify.com, to
Namibian contacts. We used Google Analytics to monitor traffic.
We recorded 874 page views, including the land page, from 189
unique IP addresses. Some 86% were from Namibia, 10% from the
USA, 2% from South Africa, Zambia and Ghana, and 2% from
elsewhere. Most visitors used phones to view the prototype, 14%
used desktops and 3% tablets. The Oshindonga pages received 59%
of the total page views. The English homepage received 133 visits
and its equivalent, Etameko, page received 208 visits.
Questionnaires in English and Oshindonga attached to the site, also
generated data on 8 men and 13 women, aged 18 to 34 years, and
suggested that two different people used one device. Only one
respondent did not speak an Oshiwambo dialect at home, yet 11
answered the English questionnaire, one answered both English
and Oshindonga questionnaires, and 7 the Oshindonga
questionnaire only. Of respondents to the Oshindonga
questionnaire, eight stated that they spoke Oshindonga at home and
one Oshiwambo; and of Owambo respondents to the English
questionnaire, seven said they spoke Oshindonga at home, three
Oshikwanyama and one Oshiwambo. The questionnaires also
asked visitors to choose three words/phrases from two lists, mostly
based on those used by participants in design activities, to best
describe their feelings about the prototype and the images used.
4 REFLECTIONS
We consolidated the themes generated at different phases of design,
development and evaluation and, here, elaborate on those that
dominated. We begin by summarising the ways that English was
entangled in the process, and examples of difficulties in translating
into Oshindonga. Then we describe links between language and
felt-experience, or the emotions, intuitions and morals people sense.
We explain how a sense of home connected to familiarity,
belonging and pride in aawambo culture, and how pride emerged
in relation to seeing and understanding a website in Oshindonga.
We conclude with examples of the ways that residents of Olukonda
expressed enduring links with the museum’s history and how
participants used Oshindonga to claim foreign objects, which
contrasts with their use of English for technology.
4.1 Conceptualising Websites in English
Hilma’s notes were in English when she listened and spoke in
Oshindonga during interviews, even when she mentally translated
from Oshindonga, because her education means she is most
accustomed to, and faster at, writing in English. She also analysed
all data in English because the research was conducted in a
university where technology is studied in English, and we normally
think about technology in English in Namibia. Hilma mostly
thought in English in designing the English prototype. Firstly, she
had translated Oshindonga to English to document requirements;
secondly, all her prior work on websites was in English; and, finally,
she had acquired all her knowledge of web design, HCI, user-
centred design and usability in English, from university classes,
textbooks and online guides. It was more natural for Hilma to think
about website concepts and principles in English, and had she
begun with Oshindonga she would not have comprehensively
accounted for user-centred design and interactivity in requirements,
or offered sufficient scope of interactions to explore experiences in
localisation activities. When translations to Oshindonga worked
well, Hilma felt a sense of discovery, like realising a new method
to solve something difficult. As she usually creates websites in
English, she never thought of presenting things like error messages
and in another language such as Oshindonga.
Participants in articulating needs also associated the concept of a
website with English and western design, including those who do
not speak English. Hilma did not show any websites during her first
interviews, yet participants referred to elements of websites they
had seen. For instance, MS1 described, in Oshindonga, the
navigation bar in websites she had seen as: “the long thing at the
top”, and that some websites have contact numbers and places
where people enter their details. Meanwhile, MS2, who does not
speak English or use computers, discussed displaying multiple
images by referring to her experience of seeing photos presented on
Facebook, in English, when someone had showed her their phone.
Two men in Olukonda also gave examples of a soccer website in
English, where they check scores and team rankings, and to
Facebook, which they use on their phones. Thus, the role of English
in design resembles the reality that Oshiwambo people encounter
websites in English; or as one participant said:
The people will be surprised if they see the website in
Oshindonga because websites are supposed to be in
English.
In localisation, Oshindonga dominated speech (80%) but we
presented the website concept in English. Thus, participants looked
at the English prototype while discussing the Oshindonga version,
which both limited their creativity and encouraged speaking in
English. Two participants, who were university students, spoke
mostly in English and switched to Oshindonga only when asked to
translate. All participants said the English prototype’s layout and
colour was satisfactory for the Oshindonga version. Even
participants who could not read English always asked for
confirmation about the efficacy of their suggestions as they
assumed website conventions are always in English. We discussed
other navigation options but participants did not suggest alternative
designs, saying, for instance:
The menu is fine like that, because even the websites I
have seen have their menus like the one on the English
version.
In evaluations, participants who are familiar with websites also
related their opinions about navigation and structure to English
websites they had seen. What mattered most was the uniqueness
of including Oshindonga text and images of everyday cultural
items; or, as one participant said:
People should be shocked because the website will also
be in Oshindonga, which is not common since I think it
will be the first.
4.2 Translating Logics & Felt-Experience
Almost all the English prototype’s content was translated into
Oshindonga by Olukonda residents, which included entire revision
when there was a lack of equivalent meanings or agreement
between English and Oshindonga meanings. Almost all text in
navigation and feedback elements were translated to Oshindonga,
but participants in evaluations in Windhoek had difficulties in
understanding the prototype, as they were unfamiliar with the rich
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H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
Oshindonga used by participants in Olukonda and usually used the
language to speak not write. Several participants in evaluation had
problems finding the page to make bookings because they were
unfamiliar with ‘ninga oshilage,’ the translation of bookings.
Aspects of metaphors in navigation elements also did not translate;
for instance, participants in evaluations said ‘egumbo’, the direct
translation of home, did not make sense on the menu, because they
expected the homepage to comprise information about a homestead
and “pictures of our traditional houses”. They suggested that
‘etameko’, or beginning, better-suited navigation, or as one said:
That is the first page, where we start using the website.
Translating the feelings and emotions of user-experience goals
expressed in Oshindonga was especially difficult. For instance, a
participant said:
Nduuvite nawa, nduuvite uugumbo, ndanyanyukwa, tayi
dhimbulukitha, oshiwaanawa, tayi hili, tayi longondje
notashi hokitha.
These words approximate to make her feel good, proud, happy and
give her memories, by being nice, informative and attractive, but
have richer connotations than their literal English translation. In
their shared cultural context, Hilma understood participants’
references to attractiveness and happiness. Hilma sensed memories
and felt-experiences in Oshindonga that were triggered by
interacting with images of the different places and items in the
museum. Further, even when mostly thinking in English in
analysing requirements and data, she mixed in Oshindonga and
always thought in Oshindonga when reviewing images related to
her culture and organising the layout of the Oshindonga version.
4.3 Home as Felt-Experience
Concepts of home received much attention across activities,
beyond breakdowns in the home navigation metaphor, and the
museum’s associations with the home of Dr Rautanen and the
Oshindonga Bible. Personal and aesthetic senses of home
connected to familiarity and belonging, characterised user-
experiences.
The homestead pages on the online prototype received most views,
30 and 13, on the Oshindonga and English pages respectively.
Similarly, in localisation and evaluation participants spent time on
the homestead page, selecting images, and recalling and telling
stories about parts of the egumbo (homestead). Their preferences
for images conveyed the importance of parts of the egumbo. Five
participants chose an image of the oshini, close to a home’s
entrance, where women and young girls pound omahangu, a staple,
into flour for use in porridge. Seven participants chose the
oshinyanga, where male visitors wait to be received, male family-
members are served food, and fathers and male extended family sit
around the fire educating sons about customs and values.
Participants also chose an image that showed the direction of the
osheelo/eelo, the egumbo’s main entrance. An east-facing osheelo
creates a good atmosphere with the rising sun, and symbolise
prosperity, as the Aakwampungu, or ancestors, come from the east
to bless people [39].
Both participants who had and had not visited the museum
expressed that they wanted the website to make them feel part of
the museum. This interconnected with language, which participants
often referred to as ‘home language’. In localisation and evaluation,
they often connected home to feelings, and the time they spent
discussing the homestead page suggested special emotional value,
perhaps because home is where they feel comfortable and safe.
They recounted memories made at home and associated memories
with images. For instance, one said:
The image of the traditional hut gives me a feeling of
home because I have an experience with them at home,
so seeing them gives me a feeling of home.
Participants in localisation also suggested images of traditional
items that belong to them, and provoked ‘a traditional feeling’ in
users by connecting with their culture. Website visitors’ choices of
three words to describe their opinions of photos on the online
prototype confirmed associations but varied depending on the
language of the questionnaire (Fig. 1). Of eight respondents to the
Oshindonga questionnaire, more (62%) selected
‘yopamuthigululwakalo’ (traditional), and (62%) ‘uugumbo’
(proud), in relation to images; while, more (69%) of the 13
respondents to the English questionnaire selected ‘attractive’.
Participants associated tradition with photos of baskets made of
palm leaves, and equipment for drinking, fetching salt and churning.
Many participants learnt their culture at home and selections
suggest that they related some images to senses of familiarity and
belonging. For instance, they replaced a necklace made of ostrich
eggshells with drinking utensils used even today and especially at
aawambo weddings and chose an image of the church surrounded
by green grass that might represent the season that people are busy
in the village.
4.4 Owambo Identity and Pride
Many participants explained that they preferred an image of
traditional baskets because they have been part of aawambo culture
for generations and local people still use them for storage.
“Omukiintu ontungwa” means a woman is a basket [61] and men
said that the baskets caught their attention because they symbolise
women. Women, on the other hand, mentioned that the photos
reminded them of carrying baskets when visiting others’ homes and
that elders always told them to carry the basket well on their head.
Participants agreed that the baskets is associated with identity, as
one said:
… and even some of the tourists might have heard of
them and so would want to come see them and even buy.
Sometimes images triggered memories of items or activities, other
times it reminded participants of items that they rarely see anymore:
Omafano nga taga kala ko naga kale taga dhimbulukitha
ndje iinima yimwe yopamuthigululwakalo ngaashi mbi
ihaatu mono we olundji.
Participants associated images of items in the museum with pride.
Many participants in evaluation interviews mentioned that the
prototype made them feel proud “because it is in my language”.
Associating text in Oshindonga with pride had several facets.
Sometimes pride related to linking language with technology, and
sometimes to being able to understand the information in the
prototype. Participants who had not visited the museum engaged
most in reading content and viewing images. Responses to a
question that asked visitors to choose three words from a list to
describe their feelings also hint of different aspects of pride in
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H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
relation to language. Of eight respondents to the Oshindonga
questionnaire 75% selected proud in Oshindonga, and of 13
respondents to the English questionnaire 31% selected ‘proud’
while 61% selected ‘impressed’. We speculate that feeling
impressed by webpages about Namibian heritage, in English and
Oshindonga might link to sense of the authoritativeness of
presenting information online.
Figure 1: Words chosen by 21 visitors to the Oshindonga and
English websites to describe opinions of (a) the site (b) images
4.5 Claiming and Not Claiming Foreign Objects
While participants’ choices of some images were based on owning
the objects they depicted, they also noted some objects that did not
belong to them and were brought to Olukonda by the missionaries,
specifically machines and musical instruments. Interesting insights
arose with respect to relationships with foreign things. During
interviews, participants from Olukonda suggested the image of Dr
Rautanen’s hat. Nakambale, Dr Rautanen’s Oshindonga nickname,
recognized that his hat resembled an okambale (small basket). The
image of the hat shows, mutually, Dr Rautanen’s ownership of the
item and his connection to the participants’ community, where
Nakambale is still a popular name for baby boys. Participants from
Olukonda also referred to Dr Rautanen as Tatekulu, even when
speaking in English. Tatekulu was used to address male
missionaries to show regard for their power and knowledge [45],
but is also a name for an old man, usually associated with wisdom
[40], and shows respect for elders, which is important to Owambo
people. Domestication of the foreign also connected with images
related to Christianity. Participants preferred certain images linked
to Christianity over others, such as the altar inside the church, as
they believed it is the heart of the church, used for sacred purposes
in Holy Communion and weddings.
In contrast to applying Oshindonga terms to missionaries, and their
hats, participants rarely used Oshindonga terms to describe
technology. They occasionally used ‘epandja lyopaungomba’ for
website and ‘ongodhi yopeke’ for phone. However, they were more
likely to say ‘ocomputer’ and ‘ointernet’ than words like
‘uungomba’ for technology, or ‘omunongononi gwopaungomba’
for technologist. It seems participants distinguished these concepts
saying to Hilma:
You are the one who know a lot because you work with
the websites and technology things.
5 DISCUSSION
English dominates technology production in Africa and, despite
increased online representation and automatic translation; the web
excludes hundreds of African languages. Along with other
structural and systemic factors exerted by forces outside Africa, this
situation contributes to creating technologies unsuited to most
Africans’ lives [13] and erodes knowledge diversity [14, 27]. We
argue that relations between English and the identities of
technology in Africa inhibit potentials to materialise the social,
intellectual and emotional capitals of local languages in innovation.
Thus, we conclude by describing ways that English performs in
everyday experiences of technology and in the identities of
technologists. We analysed relations in a small project in Namibia,
and do not suggest that the same specific issues arise across
Africa’s diversity or that paradigms based on languages with a few
million speakers can reorient technology’s bias. Rather we suggest
that critically reflecting on English in technology production
reveals conditions that compromise creativity and may inspire new
approaches.
5.1 Lifeworlds, Translations & Technology
Production
English performs in technology production in Namibia far beyond
what we usually call design and development. It is integral to
technologists’ lifeworlds [25], or the meanings technologists
encounter and engage in everyday life. English language, and
symbols associated with English, perform in the culture and
sociality of technology in Namibia - used in formal contexts of
learning and thinking about technology, and informally between
Namibians who do not share home languages. That is, English
participates in technologists’ lived experience of taken-for-granted
practices, beliefs, values and interactions.
Namibians Asino and Mushiba [5] assert that technology schema
from outside Africa impose their way of ordering, even when
projects aim to depict the worth of Afrikan knowledge, and this
includes language interference [5]. Our study extends literature on
mis-matches between local ways of knowing in Namibia and
technology templates, and how design constructs, like metaphors;
contribute to interactions and interaction breakdowns [23, 31, 60,
70]. Studies elsewhere in rural southern Africa describe ways that
design translated local logics about sociality through external logics
[9] and other researchers in Namibia note that shared cultural
contexts yield meanings beyond simply words [21]. Our reflections
show that translating words and other symbols entwine abstract
concepts with felt-experiences. Design participants, for instance,
indicated that home is important not only to intergenerational
knowledge transfer [44], but to sense of belonging. The design
space of the website emphasised aspects of user-experience that are
aesthetic [36]. For instance, participants repeatedly related cultural
objects and language content to pride in aawambo, and pride linked
as much to the existence of a website in Oshindonga as the ability
to understand information in it.
0%
25%
50%
75%
Descriptors selected for website
Oshindong
a
0%
25%
50%
75% Oshindonga
English
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H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
We propose that Namibian technologists’ lifeworlds involve
reconciling and separating technology and local cultures, and this
involves felt-experience. Namibians Asino and Mushiba [5]
explain:
We always are and always have been “inside”, busying
ourselves in ordering and dividing the many “in heres”
from “out theres” [5].
The intricacy of this ongoing busying is rarely regarded as part of
technology production, which tends to frame design and
development as a specific process, even when advocating that
localisation must be integrated across this process [15, 41, 53].
However, the continuous flow of sensory, sensual and intentional
connections with settings, as people go along in life, yields thoughts,
ideas and emotions that entwine with each other and with physical
embodiment [36]. This has motivated calls in Namibia for more
relational approaches to design that do not focus on reifying from
life’s continua [11].
5.2 English and Technologists’ Identities
People’s identities are constructed and defined through their own
and others’ lifeworlds. Interviews in 26 Africa countries show that
‘universal’ paradigms shape technologists’ life-worlds [13], and
studies in Ghana suggest this confirms technologists as special
kinds of people [7]. In Namibia, fluency in English acts together
with creating technology in marking technologists’ personal and
group identity. This differentiation may undermine manifesting
local social, intellectual and emotional qualities in creating
technology.
Design and evaluation participants differentiated home and foreign
cultural objects but also made some foreign objects at home in their
world, such as naming a person after a local object because it
resembled his hat. They did not, however, similarly use
Oshindonga to identify a ‘technologist’. Nguigi wa Thiong'o, the
canonical African postcolonialist, proposed that language mediates
our very being: “Between me and my own self. Between my own
self and other selves” [70], and other African authors argue that
using international languages distinguishes African elites from the
lifeworlds of the people that provide their cultural and linguistic
roots [63]. Inhabitants of Olukonda generally consider Namibians
who are fluent in English as better educated, more modern and
highly paid; which may partially reflect that the village is located
amongst Namibia’s poorest regions [46]. Other dimensions may
also distinguish technologists; for instance, Hamunyela et al. [26]
describe rural views that technology careers are improper for
women.
Technologists are active in processes that entwine language and
identities. For instance, developing the Nakambale Museum
website in Windhoek, not in Olukonda, reproduces perceptions that
ICTs to sustain heritage necessarily involves technologists far away.
Meanwhile Hilma felt that her limited experience in thinking about
technology in Oshindonga meant using English for ‘good’ design.
5.3 Active Reflexive Critique
By critically introspecting, we exposed relations between felt-
experiences, identity and technology that are relevant to designing
interfaces for Namibia’s languages. As important, reflecting on
how language, and other symbolic systems, work in technologists’
lifeworlds extends insights into the ways ‘universal’ paradigms
shape innovation.
As elsewhere globally, critical reflection has little presence in
Namibia’s computing curricula. Perhaps to attract foreign
investment and expertise [5, 57], Namibian universities sustain the
disciplinary silos of classical European education systems and
separate computer studies from humanities. Computing curricula
rarely consider the way technology production is situated in
transnational politics and the power dynamics of capital and race
[9, 13]. We suspect that an absence of critical pedagogies in
computing conflates with tropes about the superiority of western
knowledge and local protocols that do not question elder authority
[10]. None-the-less, our experiences in doing technology projects
and teaching and studying computing suggest that technologists
often recognises cultural differences, like those expressed in the 7-
dimensions model [12]. Many also recognises that models of
culture differentiate and generalise about culture from within a
particular paradigm. This might be because technologists are aware
that they are always busying themselves ordering and dividing [5].
We propose that reflecting on what this ‘busying’ involves is
valuable to insights about the ways technologists are entwined in
and adapt to, or resist, neo-linguistic imperialism. We found that
uncovering relations between language, lifeworld and identity
revealed ways that the dominant paradigm limits creativity. For
instance, Hilma felt compelled to use an internationalisation
approach because she learnt about design principles in English, and
participants settled on this ‘universal’ template because it was alike
websites they were familiar with, regardless of its cultural
appropriateness.
Design research in Namibia rarely remarks on the language used to
analyse and conceptualise technology, or its relations with
technologists’ felt-experiences. Indeed, this is confronting for
various reasons. First, technology production emphasises rational,
not emotional, decision-making, which acts to construct
technologists in certain ways. For instance, a CEO of a tech hub in
Zimbabwe explained: “The people who write software tend to be
the people who do not appreciate the social side of technology” [13].
Second, technologists’ abilities to convey felt-experiences are
limited because studying computing prioritises proficiency in
English and generally, formal education marginalises local
languages [30, 34, 35]. Third, home language entwines with senses
of pride and belonging. It is increasingly common for urban
Namibians not to speak and write their home languages fully,
which not only performs in their identity but also conflates with
emotions. In fact, some technologists are drawn to rural localisation
projects to enrich their vocabularies. Alternative pedagogies and
practices for computing based in local languages may encourage
constructing technologists more holistically. Namibia’s oral arts,
for instance, which deftly combine contemporary themes and
traditional values and forms [35], may offer ways to claim design
and reimagine technologists’ identities.
6 CONCLUSION
We explored how language shapes technology production in
Namibia by reflecting on the design of the first fully bilingual
website in an Oshiwambo dialect. This illustrated that English, and
symbols associated with English, perform in technologists’
lifeworlds and identities far beyond what we usually call design
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H. Aludhilu & N. Bidwell
activities. Reports of design research in Namibia, as elsewhere, do
not explicitly state the languages in which technologists think. Yet,
relationships between language and technology production can
exclude people and inhibit the full involvement of social,
intellectual and emotional capitals in innovation. Interrogating
relations between felt-experiences and linguistic and other
translations provoked us to think about technologists’ identities
more holistically, and we suggest such reflective examination can
inspire new ways to claim technology production in Africa.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the staff at Nakambale Museum, all participants in design
activities and the anonymous reviewers of the first draft of this
paper.
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