Lessons from zero-rated websites

HANDS-ON Experience Learning

LESSONS FROM ZERO-RATED WEBSITES

LESSONS FROM ZERO-RATED WEBSITES: PUTTING THE USER FIRST

Zero-rating means that a user can access a specific website for free. Civil society organisations (CSOs) know that having their digital content zero-rated is a major advantage because zero-rating democratises access to information and resources online.

But the zero-rating1 advantage can only be fully realised once CSOs meet the needs of their target audiences. This means that audiences must know where to find free resources and feel comfortable using them. This learning brief looks at the experience of three zero-rated websites (CareUp, OLICO and Zibuza) to discover how they became more accessible, more user-friendly and better known.

Prepaid data is unaffordable to most South Africans. Yet, if they had access to the information and services offered on mobile platforms, it would improve their quality of life and grow our economy. Since 2016, DGMT has proposed that the zerorating of mobile services and content, offered by registered public benefit organisations (PBOs) and government entities promoting socio-economic development, should be managed through a Social Innovation Register (SIR). The SIR would allow approved PBOs to provide Internet users with free mobile data access to their online services.

DID YOU KNOW?

Zero-rating of the digital content of public benefit organisations and government websites is now a condition of licence for network operators. However, the mechanism to facilitate this is not yet in place and DGMT is working with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies to make this happen urgently.

1 Typically, zero-rating is the process of providing subsidised digital content and/ or access to the Internet at no charge to the user. One of its key objectives is to increase access to online information and resources for users who cannot afford the cost of data. For more about zero-rating in South Africa, visit: https://dgmt. co.za/zero-rating-mobile-services/

In 2020, several educational sites were zero-rated since schools and early learning centres were closed because of lockdown regulations. These sites were made more accessible to ensure as many people as possible – particularly those in the poorest communities – were able to access content, free of charge, in order to support their continued education. DGMT championed the zero-rating of 66 PBO educational websites in July 2020, of which 39 were approved.

However, “making something free doesn’t necessarily mean that people will find your content and engage with it in the way you intended”, explains Emma O’Shaughnessy, digital communications specialist and lead of the Amplify|Mobilise|Change2 programme at DGMT. Understanding your audience’s needs, telling good stories, making information engaging and ensuring widespread distribution of content are critical for creating and retaining valuable interactions with audiences.

In August 2020, to further its zero-rating advocacy3 and help zero-rated PBOs capitalise on this advantage, DGMT invited them to apply for a grant. The intention was for the grant to address supply and demand issues with the zero-rated sites.

These included:

› AUDIENCE RESEARCH that informs a digital strategy.

[See learning brief on digital communications in DGMT's Hands-On Learning Publication (Issue 16) on page 3.]

› DIGITAL STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT so that PBOs could make better use of their digital resources.

› TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT to make the zero-rated sites more user-friendly and to help PBOs transition from face-to-face support to digital support.

› CONTENT CREATION so that the content could be more service-oriented (as opposed to informative from a marketing perspective).

› STAFF DEVELOPMENT to ensure that there were internal competencies to manage the digital services.

› BUILDING OF MONITORING, EVALUATION, RESEARCH AND LEARNING SYSTEMS to ensure strong analytics for better measurement of success.

› KNOWLEDGE SHARING and opportunities for collaborative partnerships.

› MARKETING of the zero-rated sites.

› IMPROVED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) on the zero-rated sites.

In total, 18 grants were approved and the plan was to administer them over a short period from August to December 2020.4 It is important to note that the timescale impacted on the type of site modifications PBOs were able to implement. As a quick win at the start of the project, Mignon Hardie, DGMT project grant manager, organised for 26 of the original 39 zero-rated sites (more than the number of grantees) to be added to relevant categories (Read Books, Parenting, Education) within the popular Moya Messenger app’s “Discover” section. This South African data-free app was launched five years ago and provides free access to a suite of websites and messenger services, aimed mainly at young people. Moya had the immediate impact of increasing traffic to these sites.

The following important learnings emerged from the grantmaking process:

THINK MOBILE FIRST: Always think about the end user who is on a mobile phone and who may have relatively low digital literacy. Site navigation needs to be clear.

THINK DATA-LIGHT: Even if a site is zero-rated, it won’t be easy to navigate if it is data-heavy, as this affects site speed, and users become discouraged on slow sites. It is vital to use low data images, for example.

PUT RESOURCES UPFRONT: Make sure that the resources you are promoting are easy to find, even for someone with low digital literacy.

HAVE A CLEAR DIGITAL STRATEGY: Specialists need to work with PBOs to develop more cohesive digital strategies and to move beyond the concept of ‘putting resources out there’. You need to think about your audience and how programmes/projects can harness technology to reach them better or meet their needs in more comprehensive ways.

What can civil society organisations learn from the experience of PBOs that have been zero-rated? This learning brief delves into three case studies: CareUp, OLICO (both DGMT grantees) and Zibuza.

2 Amplify|Mobilise|Change (AMC) is an online learning programme launched in 2019. AMC was developed as an opportunity for communicators in South African civil society to hone their knowledge and skills in technology and online content strategy, and to better integrate online communication into their arsenal of social change tools.

3 If these zero-rated sites proved successful, DGMT would be well-placed to argue for zero-rating of PBOs beyond the period designated as a national disaster.

4 One grantee’s funding period extended in to 2021.

CareUp (careup.mobi) is one of the Reach Trust’s flagship Early Childhood Development (ECD) services, aimed at parents and ECD practitioners. It provides daily content and activities for children aged 4–5 years. It was launched as a free offlinecompatible Android app5 in 2016. Later, a mobi-site6 version was created that modelled the Android experience.

Andrew Rudge, CEO of the Reach Trust, explains why they wanted to be zero-rated: “We aim to inspire and improve lives through the development of innovative and cost-effective mobile solutions. The main goal for all our products has always been to be accessible to those who need them most.”

The CareUp mobi-site had to be moved to a local server on a fixed Internet Protocol (IP) to accommodate zero-rating requirements. It also needed an improved landing page and easier login and tracking processes. The tech improvements were completed, but there was a hold-up as the site then needed to be re-submitted to the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) for zerorating using the new server details. This took some time7 and delayed their marketing campaigns.

LANDING PAGE IMPROVEMENTS

While users of the Android app can also find more information on the app prior to download in the Google Play Store (with screenshots demonstrating functionalities), this was not available to the mobi-site users. Additionally, while face-to-face workshops were previously used to provide more information on the app prior to onboarding, these have not been used since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic in early 2020. Therefore, having no additional information on the mobi-site landing page didn’t allow users to find out more about the platform and its purpose before signing in. This was seen as a potential barrier to users, which may have caused a higher bounce rate.8

Front-end web development changes were made to the landing pages of the mobi-site to improve the user experience of firsttime users, including the addition of:

› a brief introduction text describing the platform and its purpose;

› logos for the content provider and managing organisation;

› a link to the Reach Trust’s website in the footnote to improve the page’s authenticity and to provide users with a channel of communication to report any issues or bugs;

› basic Google Analytics tracking for the landing page; and

› a new sign-in method.

A NEW SIGN-IN METHOD

In order to lessen barriers to creating new accounts, a new signin method was introduced along with the zero-rating of the ECD mobi-site. This allowed users to register and sign in using their mobile number as their “username”. No password requirements were added to simplify the registration process and to limit the potential for duplicate accounts.9 Prior to this addition, users could only sign in using their Google account.

5 An Android app is a native software designed to run on an Android device.

6 A mobi-site (also known as a mobi website) can be accessed from any Internet browser (including on desktop computers), but is developed specifically for a fast and efficient user experience on mobile devices, like smartphones.

7 CareUp was zero-rated in the last quarter of 2020

8 The percentage of users who enter the site, don’t complete any actions on the page they landed on, and then leave rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site.

9 In an early pilot study (2016), it was found that users who forgot their passwords would often just create new accounts, increasing the number of new registrations without increasing the number of unique users.

Figure 1: The new CareUp landing page

This new method was released in December 2020. To determine its overall success, the percentage of new mobi registrations using each method from December 2020 is shown in Figure 2.

AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION

While competitions are a great way to attract attention and drive engagement, it is difficult to know if the right target group is being reached. So CareUp utilised a newsletter/email marketing campaign to attract new users and filter out disengaged audiences.

While the new sign-in method appears to be successful (around 75% of all new web registrations use this sign-in method), the quality of these registrations appears to be lower with fewer of these users completing their basic profile details.

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

An airtime competition was launched in January 2021 with the objectives of: increasing uptake on the mobi-site, encouraging quality engagement and bringing attention to the newly launched Facebook page. Over the course of six weeks, ten R100-airtime prizes were awarded per week.

During the competition, there were 165 new registrations on the CareUp mobi-site; of which 142 (86%) provided their mobile numbers. Of these, 103 (73%) with mobile numbers were also active (engaged with activity, resource and message pages) and were automatically entered into the draws over the six-week period.

LEARNINGS

› A large portion of the ECD apps’ users may not regularly use their email accounts (or may not do so from their mobile phones). Typically during workshop onboardings, many users required assistance with setting up their Google accounts or had forgotten their account details.

› POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act) has to be taken into consideration when sending out any form of communication to users. Users should be able to opt-in and opt-out of any form of communication and/ or marketing.

PARTNERSHIP WITH MOYA MESSENGER

In January 2022, CareUp was featured in the “Discover Section” of the Moya Messenger app, where a range of data-free content and services are linked. This resulted in a unanimous surge in new daily visitors. See Figure 3

Figure 3: Sign-in on CareUp’s mobi-site

Figure 2: Sign-in on CareUp’s mobi-site

ENGAGEMENT

While growth on the mobi-site improved after zero-rating with the support of the development changes and marketing strategies undertaken, the long-term engagement is expected to be lower.

The majority of users are active for one day. CareUp aims to encourage regular engagement, which is more easily achieved on the Android app through frequent push notifications.

This can be seen in Table 1, which compares the average number of active days and the maximum number of active days of mobisite users and Android app users for the same time period.

WHATSAPP HELPLINE

In 2020, OLICO launched a WhatsApp hotline for learners struggling with maths in Grades 7, 8 and 9. The helpline also helps learners to log into the site by providing a username and password linked to their mobile number.s

THE TIMES-TABLES CHALLENGE

The times-tables challenge was delivered via an app that connects to the zero-rated server content, so it came with no data cost to learners. It consists of 15 quick drill questions that learners should aim to complete in under a minute. About 1 300 learners from 59 schools or NGO partners participated in the challenge, and 256 learners from 38 schools/NGOs participated in a live final that was run over the video communication platform, Zoom.

LEARNINGS

Table 1 shows that users on the Android app are more likely to remain active for longer. Ways to encourage longer-term engagement from mobi users should continue to be investigated.

CASE STUDY #2 OLICO MATHS EDUCATION

OLICO (learn.olico.org) uses digital technology to help township youth make sense of maths. OLICO’s digital platforms are tailored for learners in low-resource communities who are struggling with numeracy. Prior to the pandemic, OLICO worked in the afterschool space with their tutors providing fun and engaging maths activities in maths clubs at schools and community centres. Zerorating services allowed them to continue to engage with learners over a longer time frame.

Andrew Barrett, CEO and founder of OLICO, says: “For most of our learners, data is a highly prized and expensive commodity and to have zero-rated offerings that allow learners to connect with their maths content without having to spend limited resources on data and airtime is really useful and significant.”

OLICO has an Android app that learners can download from the Google Play Store. But less than half their learners use it – most prefer to go to the browser because it is free. There is a certain resistance to downloading apps, perhaps because entry-level devices do not have a lot of space.

OLICO identified the need to drive more traffic to its site and increase user engagement with the content. Thus, they launched a WhatsApp helpline and a times-tables challenge.

› The WhatsApp hotline led to learners returning in much higher numbers than they ever did on the pure e-learning platform. Barret explains: “We never thought we would go onto a WhatsApp hotline; we never thought it would work. If it wasn’t for Covid-19, we would never have done that. But we have seen reactions way beyond our expectations.” In 2022, over 10 000 children accessed the hotline. During the DGMTgrant period, the WhatsApp hotline increased usage from between 240 and 980 monthly users to between 1 800 and 3 400 monthly users.

› OLICO’s aim with the times-tables challenge was to push maths fluency across the broad base of their learners. Barrett thinks they were “half successful” with that because: “the more proficient children practised regularly and improved dramatically whereas the struggling learners tended to give up quicker. The challenge now is how do we keep the struggling learners motivated."

› A strong recommendation when setting up a zero-rated site is to use as few third-party plug-ins as possible. Barrett tested the site when it was zero-rated and it took 30–40 seconds to load. This was due to the presence of Google fonts (a common element on WordPress sites). Barret says: “It was loading terribly slowly, and it was essentially unusable. If this happens, you are actually not getting the benefit out of your zero-rating. Make sure your fonts sit directly on your server, that they are not looking for instructions from outside.”

› There is a limit as to how much technology can do on its own. Barrett thinks that in a learning environment children need the input of a caregiver, parent, tutor or teacher in conjunction with the e-learning tool.

Table 1: Active days stats for CareUp’s users

CASE STUDY #3

Zibuza (Zibuza.net) is an online professional learning community that launched in 2016 with the goal of improving the quality of teaching and learning outcomes, particularly in South African public schools, quintile 1–3.10 The aim was to connect teachers across the country with their peers, experts and organisations, and then facilitate interactions around academic and nonacademic support.

In 2020, Zibuza joined the campaign for zero-rating but discovered they could not apply because their platform was based in the United States and it had to be hosted in South Africa to be considered. However, a teacher from rural Mpumalanga reached out, asking if their monthly teacher award could be changed to thrice monthly, as he could only afford to log on for two weeks per month because of high data costs. “This was counter to our vision and mission for a more inclusive and equitable schooling environment,” explains Malcolm Mooi, Zibuza’s founder. “Getting our platform zero-rated became a key priority.”

In November 2020, Zibuza applied to be zero-rated via the Department of Basic Education (DBE). They were also able to migrate their infrastructure from the United States to South Africa, in terms of compliance. Zibuza was zero-rated in the first quarter of 2021.

Mooi says that zero-rating enabled the PBO to offer more services to teachers and learners. It launched a virtual learning environment that mimics in-person experiences:

› CLASSROOMS: teachers can build and publish courses/lessons for learners to access.

› LABS: there are 90 interactive maths and science simulations.

› LIBRARIES: teachers and learners can access more than 3 500 books across all grades, subject areas, and in all official languages.

LEARNINGS

› Zibuza did not see an increase in users using the site when it was zero-rated. They saw more engagement when the lockdown first happened, but by the time the platform was zero-rated, this demand had plateaued.

› Zibuza was informed by a partner organisation that the site was zero-rated, not by the relevant government department. Many PBOs are frustrated by the lack of communication from authorities. The process of zero-rating under the disaster regulations lacked transparency and PBOs were equally ill-informed about the reversal of their zero-rated status known as “unzero-rating” after the disaster regulations were lifted.

WHAT NEXT?

The National State of Disaster and provisional spectrum regulations forced mobile operators to zero-rate a wide range of websites. Although these obligations ended with the state of disaster in April 2022, they were replaced with social obligations under their new spectrum licences. ICASA requires telecommunications operators who won bids to zero-rate all mobile content provided by PBOs.

What remains is for ICASA to agree to a mechanism whereby this can be done. DGMT is working with ICASA and the Department of Communications and Digital Technology to facilitate this.

Key insights were learnt through the experience of zero-rating of health and educational websites in terms of the disaster regulations:

› Technically, it is possible to maintain a zero-rated basket of websites and applications (which the network operators achieved both for mandated sites and those they chose to include in their own subscriber benefit packages).

› However, management and monitoring systems must be robust to prevent attempts to misuse the system. These systems must be aimed at preventing both potential user fraud and misuse by PBOs.

10 South Africa divides all public schools into five quintile rankings. Quintile 1–3 schools are no-fee-paying schools and quintile 4–5 schools are fee-paying schools.

› Some of the crucial digital services provided by PBOs fall outside the specific ambit of government departments (e.g. training and support for young people not in education, employment or training [NEET], and youth- and leadership development). For this reason, applications from several PBOs in support of young people outside formal systems were rejected –despite their education and information content being vital for livelihoods during and beyond the Covid-19 disaster period.

› Many PBOs also provide digital support in several areas –from early childhood development to accelerated learning and remediation, to job mediation – and need digital content related to all of these components to be zero-rated. It would be difficult for them to submit the content through a single line department; yet multiple submissions to different departments will lead to delays and likely systems failure.

In DGMT’s view, the following key design elements for the system will be most effective:

› explicit communication of guidelines and conditions for the use of zero-rated services (both for end users and PBO applicants);

› one entry point for all PBO applications, to facilitate compliance and monitoring;

› one point of authorisation;

› maintenance of a registry;

› an interface with network operators;

› compliance monitoring;

› reporting; and

› regulatory enforcement.

› The mechanism for oversight will need to be funded. These can be achieved through a simplified system proposed in Figure 4.

Proposed registry for zero-rating of PBO digital content

ZERO-RATING REGISTRY OF PBOs

A single registry of zero-rated sites should be instituted. Its functions should include:

› maintenance of the register of zero-rated sites;

› records of the utilisation of zero-rated sites;

› continual review of the digital content of zero-rated sites to ensure they comply with the public benefit activities outlined in Schedule 9 of the Income Tax Act; and

› reporting back to network operators, oversight structures and the general public.

The process of PBO application management (via an online system) could be outsourced to a service provider, while government websites would automatically be included in the registry.

OPTION OF A SINGLE PORTAL VERIFICATION/INTERFACE

The zero-rating registry could have one interface with all network operators through a single portal containing the domains and other technical specifications of the zero-rated digital applications. Working with the network operators, this portal could help ensure a secure platform through which all datafree services could be accessed by the user. This portal could be hosted and managed by a contracted digital service provider.

Zero-rating represents a major breakthrough because it will enable all mobile phone users to access digital content for early learning, education, health and work preparation, among other services, in their own homes. Arguably, it is the most significant move towards bridging South Africa’s digital divide since the introduction of mobile technology.

Learning brief developed by Daniella Horwitz, with contributions from CareUp, OLICO and Zibuza, edited by Rahima Essop.

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