Designing for the phones people actually have

There’s an odd thing about living in a society that keeps insisting it’s digital-first: it always assumes the hardware gets better over time. That assumption works fine if you have money, live in a city, buy a new phone every two years and behave like the type of consumer tech companies imagine when they’re trying to impress shareholders. But it collapses the moment you step into a rural town where the nearest “Tech Store” is theoretical and the phone in your pocket once belonged to someone you’ve never met.

This is the world explored in Cognitive influences in second-hand markets: from perception to purchase in rural smartphone consumption*, a new academic study published in the Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy.

The research surveys 225 rural New Zealanders who rely on second-hand smartphones, and it lands on a finding that feels both obvious and culturally revealing: people do not buy phones the way economists think they do. They buy phones the way people think. And apparently people think in shortcuts.

The paper leans on schema theory, which basically means your brain builds templates for how the world works and then reuses them whenever information is missing (don’t quote me on this but this is how I understand it!). Rural consumers rely on these shortcuts because the second-hand phone market is a mix of patchy information, shaky connectivity and sellers who range from reputable refurbishers to someone unloading a phone that fell off the back of a truck. 

The study finds that perceived price fairness is the organising principle of rural second-hand phone buying. Not the actual price. Not the features. Fairness. It’s the emotional maths people use when they can’t verify the technical stuff. If the price feels fair, the phone seems better; if it doesn’t, everything else collapses. Anyone who has waited in a rural TradeMe pickup spot wondering about a dead-on-arrival battery knows this logic instinctively.

Rural buyers don’t make decisions alone. They follow the cues of their community, cousins, neighbours, environmental groups, the local repair guy. Social norms and shared values shape behaviour just as much as hardware. What the community endorses becomes part of how the device is judged. In effect, the community becomes the operating system, running in the background of every purchase.

I approached Dr Khaled Ibrahim, Lecturer in Marketing at Auckland University of Technology, and one of the authors of the study, to ask a few questions on how his research connects to the wider digital equity challenges in Aotearoa. His answers are verbatim as follows:

1. Many government services are now moving to app-based or digital-first delivery. If you had one message for government service designers about rural or low-income smartphone users, what would it be?

Dr Khaled Ibrahim

Rural communities are a vital pillar of New Zealand’s economy. Service designers must recognise that every community, rural or urban, engages with technology differently, shaped by lifestyle, access, and everyday needs. What matters to one group may not matter to another, and that diversity should guide design decisions. That’s why I stand by this principle: "Design with real life in mind”. As digital-first should never mean people-last. When services don’t work on older phones or with limited data/internet accessibility, they deepen exclusion instead of reducing it. "Real digital equity starts with realistic design.”

2. What should the digital equity and inclusion community take from your findings?

The key message for the digital equity and inclusion community is that access alone is not enough. Real inclusion is not just about putting a device in someone’s hand, but about how confident, supported, and safe they feel when using it.

Our findings show that people do not interact with technology in a purely technical way. Their choices are shaped by trust, community influence, lived experience, and what feels fair and right to them. This means effective digital inclusion must move beyond hardware and connectivity, and focus more on empowering people through guidance, confidence-building, and community-led approaches.

Second-hand and older devices are not a problem to be ‘fixed’, they are the reality for many, and they should be treated as legitimate and valid tools for participation, and one of the solutions to overconsumption. True digital equity happens when people feel capable and included, not just connected.

So, what does this mean in practice? For policymakers, this recommends drafting policies that protect second-hand technology buyers, giving users more confidence when purchasing these goods and encouraging stronger participation in sustainable technology practices. 

For individual sellers, it encourages a more realistic and fair approach to pricing technology-related items, helping to improve the culture of second-hand technology buying. 

Finally, for commercial second-hand sellers and social platforms like Facebook Marketplace (Meta), this highlights the need to incorporate tools that protect both the seller and the buyer, such as systems similar to PayPal Goods and Services. These measures can significantly improve trust and fairness in second-hand technology transactions.

Totally open to any other comments you have for our ecosystem, working to close the digital divide in Aotearoa. 

I would encourage the ecosystem to continue centring lived experience when designing digital equity initiatives. Technology should not only be accessible but also culturally safe, emotionally supportive, and aligned with the realities of everyday life in Aotearoa.

Building trust is just as important as building infrastructure. This includes working alongside communities, listening to their stories, and allowing them to co-shape solutions rather than simply receiving them. Digital inclusion should feel empowering, not overwhelming or conditional.

If we are serious about closing the digital divide, we must move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions and recognise that equity is not achieved through speed or sophistication alone, but through care, understanding, and realistic design.

*Ibrahim, K., Sarfo Agyapong, C., Sertkaya, C. E., Burnett, M., & Pampari, A. (2025). Cognitive influences in second-hand markets: from perception to purchase in rural smartphone consumption. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy. DOI: 10.1108/JEC-03-2025-0069