Illiterate People Are Why Mobile is So Powerful

Was perusing Benedict Evans slide deck on mobile.  It’s highly interesting and informative.  There is some data, and a lot of questions.  The book on mobile is in the beginning chapters, and we don’t know the outcome.  But the plot lines are starting to be written.

Among a lot of slides that interested me, this one jumped out.

Check out the amount of illiterate people in the world.  Roughly 4.5 billion of them in 2017.

The first notion I had that mobile/touchscreen stuff was interesting was when I watched toddlers play with iPads, and computer illiterate senior citizens interact with the same device.

With well designed apps, they were able to pick it up and use it.

Stop and think, how many things are there in the world that could be made accessible to massive amounts of population if redesigned into functional user experiences that you didn’t have to be “literate” to understand?

Now, imagine that illiterate people confined to a menial job, or no job becoming transformed in society through a mobile app.  What happens to productivity, and what happens to the human condition?

Mobile could rapidly increase the standards of living for people in ways we never imagined.

The post Illiterate People Are Why Mobile is So Powerful appeared first on Points and Figures.