摘要：The growth and penetration of Internet across developing countries has led to availability of a plethora of ICT
applications. Quite often, potential users of these applications hold varying perceptions, both negative and positive, in
respect of potential usefulness. This in turn, results into variations in adoption outcomes. The extant literature posits that
80% of user perceptions are negative while only 20% of their perceptions towards available ICT application are positive.
The negative perceptions inevitably results in low adoption or at times even non-adoption of applications, which then
remain under or un-utilized. This paper reports on a participatory action research study, which explores how ICT
application adoption may be enhanced through ‘empathetic participatory design’ as a method for creating knowledge that
may have meaningful application utility. This is achieved through user behavioural simulation. The main mode of data
collection and analysis was the repertory grid technique used to elicit constructs from simulated prototyped elements of a
selection of applications. In this paper, the knowledge creation process involves the use of design scenarios and use-cases
from the typical users’ point of view during co-problem discovery and scoping in respect of problems identified by the user
community. The findings of this paper reveal that a co-design approach results in reflective experiences, that create a
hybridity of knowledge which is both tacit and explicit, reciprocating each other to enrich the design outcomes of the
applications. We argue that knowledge is not only a belief of knowing and thinking but rather has the ability to be
transformed into real action. The paper posits that tacit and explicit forms of knowledge are inextricably linked and that
knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge using
modes and methods of ‘knowledge conversion’.
