Using an automated service to access information via telephone has become an important productivity enhancer. However, such automated services are generally inaccessible to users who have had little technological exposure. There has been a belief that speech recognition technology can be used to bridge this gap, but little objective evidence for this belief has been produced. To adress this situation, two interfaces, touchtone and speech-based, were designed, implemented and compared as input modalities to a system that provide the said users with access to an informational/transactional service. The speech- based interface was found to outperform the touchtone interface in terms of completion rate, error rate and user satisfaction. The data obtained on time taken to complete tasks could not be compated as the touchtone interface data was highly influenced by people who did not fall in the category of the users under consideration. These results serve to confirm that speech-based interfaces are more effective and more satisfying and can therefore enhance information dissemination to people who are not well exposed to the technology