Water treatment - Extended user testing of water treatment devices in Andhra Pradesh - A research paper by PATH

In this research paper, PATH hopes to identify, adapt and develop water treatment devices and business models for water treatment devices for the ecnomically weaker sections of society.

A key to good health is safe and clean drinking water. This however, is not always available to the economically weaker sections. The current research paper is a study to identify how the economically weaker sections of society adapt and use water treatment devices in their daily life.

PATH choses twenty households living on 5 dollars a day from four districts (Medak, Rangareddy, Warangal, Mahbubnagar) of Andhra Pradesh. Some of the criteria used to choose the houses were residence, family  size, education, water access and quality. The sample was a mix of rural, semi-urban and urban representatives. The objective was to maximise the diversity of households. This was a longitudinal study on user experiences which ran from March to December 2009. The study used ethnographic methods that included extended observation, semi-structured interviews etc.

To understand how families take to new technology the researchers introduced the participants to water treatment devices in different ways. These included giving families money to purchase a water filter and providing them unopened boxes of water filters that had to be put together.

This gave a lot of insights to how families absorbed and operated new technology. Some observations made on setting up a water filter included that school going children were brought in to set up the system. Further families used the pictograms usually found on the carton once the filter was set up to learn its operation instead of going through the manual.

Some of the key attitudinal observations included the fact that participants expect a good product would not need repair or  replacement. The notion that key components of water filters need to be replaced contradicted the participants ideas of a durable product. For low-income consumers water filters are aspirational goods.

The study also included other aspects such as water consumption peak, water storage within households, position and placement of water filters in the house.

It was found that amongst participants there were attempts to boil water. But these were mainly during the rains, early childhood or  sickness. Most participants felt that their constitution provided them immunity to disease.

The report concludes with a list of recommendations that include holding community demonstrations on water filters, creating formal and informal retail strategies to distribute these products, ensuring simplicity of design of product so that it can be easily setup, should maintain aesthetics - the report suggests the use of steel as it is respected for its durability.

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