Mose: A Mobile Application for Women Street Vendors in Cape Town

Information and communication technologies make waves in developed and developing countries. However, lack of community involvement in the design and implementation often contributes to failure of technology projects. Our project envisioned a mobile application to enable women to form ad hoc cooperatives to sell on behalf of one another; enabling non-selling women to focus on other tasks. Through the lenses of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Technology Acceptance Model, we engaged with women vendors to learn of their lived experiences. Results showed they were hesitant to form groups with other women due to a lack of trust. The interaction and feedback from participants yielded incremental co-design and development of several iterations of a mobile prototype; resulting in a final modification to allow for standalone users, whilst also accommodating groups; with groups benefiting by lowering travelling costs by allowing group members to rotate days going to the market when trust materialises.