Bangladesh’s expansion of online public services has improved access on paper, yet literacy barriers, fragile infrastructure, and inconsistent design continue to exclude many citizens. Through a convergent mixed-methods study, 293 survey responses, 28 administrator and mediator interviews, and heuristic evaluation, we show how digital literacy strongly predicts task success and autonomy, while qualitative accounts reveal how irreversibility, payment failures, and mistrust drive users toward informal mediators. These dynamics produce a Digital Democracy Paradox: systems justified as efficient and publicly framed as accessible can, in practice, deepen exclusion. We contribute: (1) the Literacy-Adaptive Usability Framework (LAUF), which treats literacy as a dynamic design parameter and integrates adaptation, mediation, and infrastructural resilience; (2) Civix UI, a lightweight illustrative prototype demonstrating bilingual, low-bandwidth, literacy-sensitive components; and (3) a mediator-inclusive design model that formalizes assisted use through accountable, gender-inclusive support. Together, these offer a pathway toward more equitable and trustworthy digital public services.

Indigenous children in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) face persistent barriers to primary education, including language mismatch, economic constraints, and limited infrastructure. Prior work often frames these challenges as problems of access; however, we argue that educational inequality in this context is fundamentally mediated through social and institutional structures.

Online video platforms have become an important resource for learning technical skills, yet their role is often understood as supplementary to formal education. This paper examines Bangla-language developer vlogs in Bangladesh and argues that, in resource-constrained contexts, such content functions as a primary pathway into software development rather than an optional aid. Drawing on a mixed-methods study combining learner survey data, creator interviews, and vlog content analysis, we show how Bangla-language developer vlogs support technical learning where formal guidance, English-language resources, and local mentoring are limited. We further demonstrate that language operates as a structural condition of access, enabling learners to engage with technical concepts that would otherwise remain inaccessible. Yet this informal learning infrastructure depends on creator labor that remains financially, technically, and socially vulnerable. By reframing developer vlogs as infrastructure rather than content, this work contributes to ongoing discussions in HCI and ICTD about access, participation, and the design of equitable learning systems in the Global South.

Chatbots are being widely used to support emotional well-being, yet many are designed from secular perspectives that overlook spiritual and religious values. This paper examines how Muslim users perceive spiritually grounded emotional support through AI. Through qualitative interviews with 17 participants, we find that users seek systems that are not only empathetic but also theologically grounded, emotionally responsive, and sensitive to privacy and credibility. Chatbots are envisioned as spiritually aligned companions embedded in everyday practices. We frame this role as a mediated religious agent, whose credibility comes from the religious authority it represents. These findings contribute to design considerations for faith-aligned mental health technologies that move beyond generic support toward contextually meaningful care.