Thank You to NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology

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Thank You to NISTNational Institute of Standards
and Technology

• for Partial Funding and Support

Culturability the merging of culture and
usability
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Culturability

• The Merging of Culture and Usability

Culturability the merging of culture and
usability
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Culturability An Introduction

• Motivations behind Culturability
• Why is this Important?
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodology and Results
• Future Iterations

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Motivations behind Culturability

• Situated and State Dependent Learning
• -Effects Memory Performance in
• recognition and recall
• -Environmental Contextual Cues
• -Cultural Context
• 8th Annual GVU WWW User Survey

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Motivations Behind Culturability

• Graphics, Visualization Usability Survey
  Cultural Issues Questionnaire
• Cultural differences and preferences are
  perceived as important
• Some Examples

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Cultural Issues Questionnaire

• Most commonly selected problem not being able to
  read the site (77)
• 24 try to interpret 28 look for translation
  27 review briefly exit 17 exit immediately
• German French most likely to say that
  translations show respect for other cultures
  Italian that translations are useful

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More Examples

• American Images Chinese, French, German were
  most likely to find them offensive
• Italian German most likely to think American
  images make computers harder to learn and use
• Colorful Sites Chinese most likely to strongly
  favor color German Spanish to dislike color

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A Few More Examples

• Link Color Blue was most commonly selected Of
  the other color choices English, German, Italian
  - red Spanish - red green Chinese - red
  purple
• Spanish was most likely to strongly like audio
  Dutch Italian most likely to dislike audio

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Why is this Important?

• Enables a Better Understanding of Global
  Interface Development
• Emphasizes the Cultural Component of Usability
  for International Web Design
• Facilitates the Implementation of Culturability
  Guidelines and Tools
• NIST

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Theoretical Framework

• Culturability - the emphasis focus on
  international culture in the context of usability
  for the WWW
• Culture influences peoples behavior practices
  in the physical world and can influence behavior,
  preferences, practices in electronic mediums

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Three Questions

• Are there design elements which can be identified
  as culturally specific?
• Are there design elements which can be identified
  as genre specific?
• What, if any, relationship exists between culture
  and genre as reflected in WWW design?

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Methodology The Culturability Inspection Method

• Foraging - identify examine design standards
  conventions that represent different potential
  cultural markers as manifested in existing web
  pages
• Cultural Marker Identification - determine
  patterns that distinguish cultural markers
• Pattern Identification - categorize patterns by
  cultural marker and genre/domain

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Foraging Results

• 18 Countries
• 13 Languages
• 9 Genres
• 168 Web-Sites in Native Language

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Cultural Markers

• HTML Specific - tables, frames, of lines, links
• Icons/Metaphors - books, newspapers, clocks,
  pages
• Colors - background, dominant, flags
• Orientation - centered, left - right, right - left

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Cultural Markers

• Flag - native, foreign, multiple
• Geography - maps, outlines, globes
• Regional - animals, foliage, water, desert
• Architecture - houses, city-scapes, state
  buildings, churches

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Specified Sample of High Frequency of Flag
Cultural Markers by Genre
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Generalized Sample of High Frequency Cultural
Markers by Country
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Some Conclusions

• Cultural differences are important
• Patterns are emerging that reflect cultural
  practices preferences in the web
• Interplay between cultural markers and genre
• Ex Lebanon - light graphics overrides heavy
  graphics typical of Travel genre

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Future Iterations of Culturability

• Comparative analysis of native and non-native
  language web sites
• Comprehensive analysis of cultural markers by
  genre
• Guidelines and automated tools to aid
  international web design
• Native language subjects identify markers
• Experiments with native speakers to verify
  whether or not markers impact user performance