=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-285/paper-4
|storemode=property
|title=An e-gov service for retirement applying by illiterate and disabled people
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-285/paper03.pdf
|volume=Vol-285
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/interact/PatacaKMB07
}}
==An e-gov service for retirement applying by illiterate and disabled people==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-285/paper03.pdf
DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
An e-gov service for retirement applying by illiterate and
disabled people
Daniel Pataca, Sônia Kutiishi, Esther Menezes and Graziella Bonadia
CPqD – Telecommunication Research and Development Center
Rodovia Campinas Mogi-Mirim km 118,5
13.083-970 – Campinas, SP, Brazil
{pataca, sonia, esther, bonadia}@cpqd.com.br
the socio-economic importance of Brazilian Social
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an e-gov service that provides a Security System.
mean to require urban or rural retirement benefits. It The digital divide, or the constraints to access the
also discusses its usability and accessibility in order to information and communication technologies (ICT),
assist disabled and illiterate people. The conception of due to educational, psychological or socio-economic
such service has been motivated by the identification of barriers is the current condition of a great amount of
the major needs among the portion of Brazilian people Brazilians. Furthermore, visual or hearing impairments
who is digitally excluded and whose functional or plain and complete or partial literacy deficiencies limit the
illiteracy levels are significantly high. Furthermore, the access to technology, thus comprising some of the main
percentage of people with visual or hearing impairments barriers to the use of computers and Internet [2]. These
at retirement age is higher than overall population characteristics are more usual among people over 60
average. Such characteristics should be taken into years old, which is the average age to request for
account when designing interfaces which can be easily retirement benefits.
used by people with low literacy levels or visual or
hearing impairment. This paper also describes the Within rural population, which corresponds to 19% of
mechanisms for user identification and the assistive total Brazilian population, or 32 millions of people in
technologies employed in the design for providing 20042, around 55% of the rural households had a
autonomy to its target public. monthly income of approximately just two minimum
wages3. In 2005, for the approximately 96 millions of
Author Keywords Brazilian workers, 19 millions worked in the
User Interface, e-gov Service, Illiterate People, Elderly agricultural sector.
People, Sensory Disabilities, Digital Divide, Due to the low income of the majority of Brazilian
Retirement. workers, the income received from retirement benefits
has an important impact on the families, especially
ACM Classification Keywords those who live in rural areas, where the retired citizen is
Graphical User Interface, Screen Design, User-centered the main provider. In Northeast, a poor Brazilian region,
design. the main source of income is from retirement payments
to the workers, whose benefit represents 50% of the
INTRODUCTION total income of almost all households [3]. For those
We present a new electronic government service, which reasons, the retirement payments plays an important
integrates in one place, only, the majority of role for reducing the poverty and the income inequality
information and forms required for retirement request in Brazil [4].
[1]. Those forms together with personal documents will
be delivered at the Brazilian Social Security System The development of an electronic service for
office (INSS – Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social). solicitation of retirement must take into account the
Such e-gov service may reduce the number of visits to profile of the majority of its target market. The illiteracy
the INSS office by people eligible for retirement, rate among people who live in urban areas is 10% and
making those procedures simpler, specially for those for people who live in rural area it increases to 28%. In
who live in towns without INSS office. addition, about 20% of the population is partially
illiterate. This number rises to 54% if we consider only
The target public for the service is composed by rural people in retirement age, the target public of the service
and urban workers who need to obtain their retirement
through Social Security System. These workers are
mostly elderly people and may be completely or 2
partially illiterate, have some visual or hearing The data related to Brazilian population mentioned in
disabilities or even just be digitally illiterate. this article where extracted from IBGE (Instituto
Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística).
Two factors motivated the creation of such service: 1) 3
the identification of the target public needs which are Nowadays the Brazilian minimum wage is around
those concerning mainly illiterate elderly people, and 2) US$ 190,00.
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DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
proposed. Furthermore, in this group, 34% has visual Most of the information about retirement application
and 18% some hearing impairments. Additionally, the procedures is available in official government Internet
portion of Brazilian population whose level of sites but it is spread across different sites and use a
instruction is lower than three years of study reaches complex language to be understood by most of people,
32%. Considering only workers at retirement age, that even by literate persons. Furthermore, sometimes it
portion goes to 54%. In the case of rural workers presents contradictory information.
eligible for retirement, this parcel increases even more,
Our e-gov service offers an integrated information
reaching 81%.
system that supports the workers during requirement
In association with the socio-economic importance of and tracking processes.
retirement benefits, the evidences on Brazilian
It innovates in presenting information using a language
population needs impose a great challenge to the
and interaction models appropriated for illiterate people
conception and development of this e-gov service: to
or people with visual or hearing impairment. Depending
create an interface with high usability and accessibility
on the user, appropriated interfaces will be presented
to its target public. It is important that such interface
considering his profile, by using assistive technologies
enables any illiterate or people with visual or hearing
such as screen readers, touch screen, command voice,
impairments to use the service without assistance. This
audio and sign language videos for people with hearing
service counts on its features to make it possible and
impairment.
that should be its great differential when compared to
similar services. Through this service, the user will be able to access
information about different kinds of retirement,
CURRENT PROCEDURES FOR THE ACQUISITION eligibility rules, documentation required and institutions
OF A RETIREMENT BENEFITS responsible for issuing such documents. That
In order to obtain any kind of retirement benefit from information will be available in a understandable
Brazilian Social Security System in present days, the language for the user.
workers should go to an INSS office and ask for
information and the required forms. Then, they must Many documents are demanded by the retirement
return to the INSS office in order to deliver the filled request and the system will provide support for getting
forms and a set of documents that prove their them by offering an electronic documents check list,
identification and fulfillment of all the requirements to giving information on how to obtain them and, also,
receive the benefit. After delivering all documents, the communication tools for contacting the institutions
worker has to wait about 40 days for the process responsible for issuing them. Sometimes, special forms
conclusion. are required for applying the retirement benefits. In that
case, the service will help the user providing the
The main barrier of a retirement applying is the necessary forms and supporting him to fill them.
understanding of the information presented by the
INSS. There is a great number of persons with low After reaching the eligibility rules and gathering the
literacy or some sensory impairment and the style of the documentation, the user must go to a social security
written information is highly technical. In addition, in a office to apply for retirement benefits. The service will
considerable number of cases, it is difficult to collect allow the user to track the progress of his process and to
documents with evidences of the number of working- update his data, for example an address change.
years requested for retirement, especially for rural
workers, usually not registered. Besides, until all PROCEDURES FOR APPLYING FOR RETIREMENT
BENEFITS USING THE SERVICE
required documents are complete and correct, it is
possible that the worker has to return to the INSS office In order to use this service, the user must go to a
several times. telecenter (Internet access point) or kiosk, located in
public places easily accessible for the target audience,
The effort of the worker to deliver all required such as rural schools and commercial areas, thus
documents may be expensive, specially if there is no reducing the distance and time travel from and to his
INSS office in the city where he lives. It is known that house.
only 20% of the Brazilian cities have an INSS office.
The user will access the service after an automatic
At the INSS Internet site it is possible to obtain identification of his profile by the system, which
information about many social security services as well includes the identification of type and degree of user's
as to download forms and track the processes status. sensory disability or level of literacy. Furthermore, the
However, as the case mentioned above, the excess of user may register himself in the system. In such case,
formal and technical language imposes a barrier for the authentication will be made by means of biometric
understanding those information, especially for those data. Figure1 illustrates the main functionalities of the
with low literacy. service.
SERVICE FEATURES
The service purpose is to support both, urban and rural
workers, offering them automatic tools to simplify the
Social Security retirement applying.
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DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
and assistive technologies for people with visual or
hearing impairments. This way, the service should
overcome the effect of those impairments and also the
limitations caused by illiteracy.
The interfaces are being designed in a way to break the
resistance of the user in face of the ICTs and to make
him interested in the service by offering an independent,
efficient and pleasant use of the service.
The service will provide an application with interactive
interface, which is automatically adapted to the user
characteristics and limitations. For that to happen, at the
initial moment of the interaction between the user and
the application, the system will have to identify his
profile, for example, type and degree of sensory
disability, level of literacy, etc. This profile will be
classified and associated to interfaces set that will be
provided by the service.
The rural or urban worker, optionally, will be able to
supply personal information, for example, rural or urban
Figure 1 – Retirement service diagram. inhabitant, age and sex. The information and the profile
Through the service, the user will be able to get all the will be stored with a biometric identity and used on his
information about the procedures for applying for register for defining the more adequate interface for the
retirement benefits without going to a social security user in his next login sessions in that application.
office, usually not present in all cities, as mentioned The access to the application will be carried out through
before. a customized portal, constructed from the
The service supports the user to get the required characteristics, limitations and preferences of the user.
documents by instructing him on how to contact the If the user is registered, that is, he has a profile
institution responsible for the document emission associated with a biometric identity, the portal will
(person of contact, e-mail, telephone and address) and, contain its preferential applications, such as tools of
on how to obtain the document. Furthermore, if communication, browsers, text editor and the service
necessary, the service provides communication tools proposed; alternatively, the portal will contain
based on text or voice so that the user can contact applications of more general use.
different institutions and ask for more information For non-registered users, the system will have to
related to the documents. identify their profiles and to configure automatically the
In the particular case of rural people who have worked most adequate interface each time they use the system.
in more than one city, this service may be especially For the registered ones, the system will only have to
helpful because they must get a declaration from the recognize the user, through his biometric identity, and
rural labor union of each city confirming their rural to recover his interface and gateway in the system.
activities during an specific period of time. This new If he wishes, the user will be able to configure his
service could avoid a journey to each city to obtain a profile in accordance with his preferences and needs,
declaration from its rural labor union. being allowed to configure the interface and to add or to
remove applications easily.
USER IDENTIFICATION
The user interfaces play a crucial role for the acceptance Sets of interfaces are being specified and developed,
of the service by its target public. Whilst the access each one directed to a group of users in accordance with
terminals are the equipment employed by the users to their characteristics, such as, low vision or blind people,
access the system, the interfaces offer the capability of full or partial hearing impaired people, plain or
an effective interaction by exchanging visual, audio or functional illiterates, and users without disability. The
tactile information. sets referring to partial impaired users and functional
illiterates will be composed by more than one type of
Beyond technical aspects, the interfaces enclose social, interface, depending on the degree of the sensory
cultural, cognitive and subjective aspects of the user. impairment or on the level of illiteracy.
They will employ a language and a model of interaction
that favor the establishment of a communication Different medias will be used depending on the type of
between the system and its users. They are being impairment, for example, in the case of blind people,
adapted to the level of knowledge and abilities of its the sound will be privileged for the communication,
target public and use elements (such as expressions, whereas for the illiterates, the images, sounds and
concepts, images, figures and words) of its knowledge figures will prevail.
9
DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
The communication language will be of easy Initially conceived to the rural and urban retirements,
interpretation for people with low level of literacy in a this service could be extended in the future for the
way that the majority of population can understand the attainment of other social benefits as aid for illness and
information provided by the Social Security System maternity-aid.
Internet site.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONCLUSION This work was supported by FUNTTEL – Fundo para o
In this article, an electronic assistant for the retirement Desenvolvimento Tecnológico das Telecomunicações
applying process for rural and urban workers was
presented. The importance of such service can be REFERENCES
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