By Patricia Waldron

To create products people actually want to use, researchers need to overcome response bias – overly positive feedback about new tech. Developers designing tech for underserved communities need to hear not only nice things about their efforts, but negative feedback, too.

In India today, dozens of phone numbers are available for people who are having a severe mental health emergency. Oftentimes, however, callers experience difficulty in getting connected with someone who will listen to them; sometimes the phone will just ring and ring.

“People think that technology is the solution – that if you place technology somewhere, that’s going to do wonders,” said Aditya Vashistha, assistant professor in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.