Blake, Edwin H.Tucker, William David2013-05-152013-05-152004Blake, E. H., & Tucker, W. D. (2004). Bridging communications across the digital divide. In A. Nijholt & T. Nishida (eds), 3rd Workshop on Social Intelligence Design, pp. 29–38, Enschede, Netherlands: CTIT90-75296-12-6http://hdl.handle.net/10566/617Connecting people across the Digital Divide is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centered approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the Digital Divide. We have incorporated the lessons learnt regarding Social Intelligence Design in an (abstract) device called the SoftBridge. The device allows information to flow from endpoints through adapters (getting converted if necessary), and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two communities in South Africa, disadvantaged deaf users and an isolated rural community. First lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay (latency) as a necessary consequence of our approach.enCopyright CTIT. This file may be freely used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. Acknowledgement of the authors and the source is required.Community-centredDigital divideInformation societyMultimodalUser interfaceUser-centred designConference Proceedings