Tutorial 1 - Cross-Cultural User-Interface Design; For Work, Home, and On the Way

Instructor

Dr. Emilie Gould, PhD, AM+A Associate and Assistant Professor
Fred C. Manning School of Business
Acadia University
Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
Tel: (902) 585-1216
Fax: (902) 585-1085
Email: egould@nycap.rr.com (after July 1 also: emilie.gould@acadiau.ca)

 Duration

Full Day Tutorial

 Learning objectives

Participants will learn new terms and concepts to understand culture, Geert Hofstede's dimensions of culture (power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation), and how these dimensions relate to the design of user-interface components (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance). In addition we shall introduce additional dimensions that must be conducted in relation to culture (persuasion, trust, intelligence, cognition). We shall examine the practice and trade-offs of several multi-national companies' Web efforts and examine a best-ofbreed set of culture dimensions derived from expert opinions.

Abstract

User interfaces for desktop, Web, mobile, and vehicle platforms reach across culturally diverse user communities, sometimes within a single country/language group, and certainly across the glob. If user interfaces are to be usable, useful, and appealing to such a wide range of users, user-interface /user-experience developers must account for cultural aspects in globalizing/localizing products and services. In this tutorial, participants will learn practical principles and techniques that are immediately useful in terms of both analysis and design tasks. They will have an opportunity to put their understanding into practice through a series of pen-and-paper exercises.

Speaker Bio

Emilie Gould received her MS (Technical Communication, 1984) and PhD (Communication and Rhetoric, 2004) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Since leaving IBM Human Factors in the mid-1990s, she has consulted and taught Technical and Business Communication. She has published in a variety of journals and written two chapters on methodologies for HCI. In addition, she regularly presents papers on intercultural communication, usability, computer-mediated communication, and distance education at a variety of conferences.

Since 2000, she has been an Associate with Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., a user-interface and information-visualization development firm with more than 23 years experience in helping people make smarter decisions faster at work, at home, at play, and on the way. AM+A has developed user-centered, task-oriented solutions for complex computer-based design and communication challenges for clients on all major platforms (client-server networks, the Web, mobile devices, information appliances, and vehicles), for most vertical markets, and for most user communities within companies and among their customers. AM+A has served corporate, government, education, and consumer-oriented clients to meet their needs for usable products and services with proven improvements in readability, comprehension, and appeal.

Working with either client R+D or marketing groups, AM+A uses its well-established methodology to help them plan, research, analyze, design, implement, evaluate, train, and document metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction and appearance. AM+A's clients include BankInter, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, The Getty Trust, HP, McKesson, Microsoft, Motorola, NCR, Nokia, Oracle, Peoplesoft, Sabre, Samsung, Tiscali , US Federal Reserve Bank, Visa, Wells Fargo Bank, and Xerox. AM+A helped design the first user interfaces for America Online, Sabre's Travelocity, and Microsoft's ThreeDegrees.com.

Intended Audience

Research and developers of, for example, Web-based documents and applications, telecommunications-oriented consumer products, and office/mobile productivity tools.

Level: introductory: emerging developments from research efforts that will enrich user-interface design in new directions. Note: participants may be advanced user-interface designers, but the topic may be new to them. Beginning user-interface designers will definitely benefit.

Teaching methods

Illustrated lectures introduce the issues of globalization, localization, and culture, then define each of the dimensions of culture and show examples from the Web. Group exercises with paper and pen provide direct experience in understanding the hidden content of cultural messages, in analyzing the impact of culture dimensions on the components of user interfaces, and in synthesizing an initial Web page design targeted for a particular culture. Participants work in teams of 5-8 people during most of the exercises.

Schedule

Lecture 0: Introduction to Tutorial and Background of Speaker

Lecture 1: Culture Dimensions and UI Design

Exercise 1: Cross-Cultural Conversations

- Break -

Exercise 1: Cross-Cultural Conversations, continued

Lecture 1: Culture Dimensions and UI Design, continued

Lecture 2: Applying Cultural Models to UI Design

- Lunch -

Exercise 2: Mapping Culture Dimensions to UI Component

Lecture 3: Culture and Corporate Website Design

- Break -

Lecture 4: Best of Breed Culture Dimensions

Exercise 3: Designing a UI for a Culture