Culture in the design of mHealth UI:An effort to increase acceptance among culturally specific groups

Purpose: Designers of mobile applications have long understood the importance of users’ preferences in making the user experience easier, convenient and therefore valuable. The cultural aspects of groups of users are among the key features of users’ design preferences, because each group’s preferences depend on various features that are culturally compatible. The process of integrating culture into the design of a system has always been an important ingredient for effective and interactive human computer interface. This study aims to investigate the design of a mobile health (mHealth) application user interface (UI) based on Arabic culture. It was argued that integrating certain cultural values of specific groups of users into the design of UI would increase their acceptance of the technology. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 135 users responded to an online survey about their acceptance of a culturally designed mHealth. Findings: The findings showed that culturally based language, colours, layout and images had a significant relationship with users’ behavioural intention to use the culturally based mHealth UI. Research limitations/implications: First, the sample and the data collected of this study were restricted to Arab users and Arab culture; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to other cultures and users. Second, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model was used in this study instead of the new version, which may expose new perceptions. Third, the cultural aspects of UI design in this study were limited to the images, colours, language and layout. Practical implications: It encourages UI designers to implement the relevant cultural aspects while developing mobile applications. Originality/value: Embedding Arab cultural aspects in designing UI for mobile applications to satisfy Arab users and enhance their acceptance toward using mobile applications, which will reflect positively on their lives.</p

Tirta Nirmaya: designing a Malay user-interface using indigenous Jawi script

My project (Tirta Nirmaya) is a design prototype of a mobile application interface based on Jawi script, an ancient Malay indigenous script. The design prototype is the result of my exploration of techniques of designing user interfaces based on Jawi script. It is a culturally important development , because Jawi typography is a communicative and literary tool in the Malay culture , and Jawi has been the intellectual and political conveyor in the history of the Malays. The prototype in Tirta Nirmaya uses poetry as content because in the Malay culture, it is a literary genre that is used to narrate history, mythology, proverb, riddles and folk romances. To complete my research project, I needed to know more about two fields within Human-Computer Interaction &amp;ndash; firstly, the development of a sustainable user interface. Secondly, I need to understand how my research can make a novel contribution to the epistemology of user interface design and cultural heritage content among globalised computer users My project involved analysis of the usefulness of Aaron Marcus&amp;rsquo; specific guidelines for the critical aspects of globalisation in the user-interface design process. Marcus&amp;rsquo; design process guidelines apply to the following functions: user demographics, technology, metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction and appearance. Marcus and Gould (2012) assert that &amp;ldquo;global product distribution requires a strategy and tactics for the design process that infuse international and cultural requirements&amp;rdquo; (p. 343). To create such a strategy, I applied Marcus&amp;rsquo; design process guidelines to two case studies. The first case study is the interface of a Malaysian government website (the Jawi Portal). The second case study relates to an interface I have designed for my research project, in order to gain an understanding of the usefulness of the theory and subsequent user-interface design technique for the Malay user. Locating a definitive design guideline for developing a user-interface for the Malay user proved difficult, for several reasons. Firstly, many academics have described the Malay culture as a diverse and complex one within a multicultural society. Artistically, the identity of the Malay culture is infused by other cultures, especially through social and intellectual traditions. While Chinese and Indian Malaysians use their indigenous typography as part of their user-interface, Malays use Latin typography. As a designer, how could I account for this diversity? Aaron Marcus, Ben Shneiderman and Catherine Plaisant recommend establishing design guidelines for multiple language and cultures. Secondly, the dwindling use of Jawi since 2001 among the youth in Malaysia and Brunei complicated the design of the user-interface. Leading cultural academics contend that Jawi is a crucial component of identity for the Malay people, and that the use of Jawi should be sustained by eternalising it in the public domain, which includes the development and use of software applications. Through the development of an application that utilises Jawi script, my aim is to encourage and cultivate the sustainable practice of this aspect of heritage within the multicultural society of Malaysia

Human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of this paper is to explore characteristics of human-computer interaction when the human body and its movements become input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; The paper quantifies the performance of human movement based on Fitt\u27s Law and discusses some of the human factors and technical considerations that arise in trying to use human body movements as an input medium. Findings &ndash; The paper finds that new interaction technologies utilising human movements may provide more flexible, naturalistic interfaces and support the ubiquitous or pervasive computing paradigm. Practical implications &ndash; In pervasive computing environments the challenge is to create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Application domains that may utilize human body movements as input are surveyed here and the paper addresses issues such as culture, privacy, security and ethics raised by movement of a user\u27s body-based interaction styles. Originality/value &ndash; The paper describes the utilization of human body movements as input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings. <br /

The Shapes of Cultures: A Case Study of Social Network Sites/Services Design in the U.S. and China

With growing popularity of the use of social network sites/services (SNSs) throughout the world, the global dominance of SNSs designed in the western industrialized countries, especially in the United Sates, seems to have become an inevitable trend. As internationalization has become a common practice in designing SNSs in the United States, is localization still a viable practice? Does culture still matter in designing SNSs? This dissertation aims to answer these questions by comparing the user interface (UI) designs of a U.S.-based SNS, Twitter, and a China-based SNS, Sina Weibo, both of which have assumed an identity of a “microblogging” service, a sub category of SNSs. This study employs the theoretical lens of the theory of technical identity, user-centered website cultural usability studies, and communication and media studies. By comparing the UI designs, or the “form,” of the two microblogging sites/services, I illustrate how the social functions of a technological object as embedded and expressed in the interface designs are preserved or changed as the technological object that has developed a relatively stable identity (as a microblogging site/service) in one culture is transferred between the “home” culture and another. The analysis in this study focuses on design elements relevant to users as members of networks, members of audience, and publishers/broadcasters. The results suggest that the designs carry disparate biases towards modes of communication and social affordances, which indicate a shift of the identity of microblogging service/site across cultures

Computational Batik Motif Generation: Innovation of Traditional Heritage by Fractal Computation\ud

Human-computer interaction has been the cause of the emerging innovations in many fields, including in design and art, architectural, technological artifacts, and even traditional heritage. In the case of Indonesian traditional heritages, the computation of fractal designs has been introduced to develop batik design – the genuine textile art and skill that becomes a symbol of Indonesian culture. The uniqueness of Batik, which depicted in the richness of its motifs, is regarded as one of interesting aspect to be researched and innovated using computational techniques. Recent studies of batik motifs have discovered conjecture to the existence of fractal geometry in batik designs. This finding has given some inspiration of implementing certain fractal concepts, such escape-time fractal (complex plane) and iterated function system to generate batik motifs. We develop motif generator based upon the Collage Theorem by using Java TM platform. This software is equipped by interface that can be used by user to generate basic patterns, which could be interpreted and painted as batik motif. Experimentally, we found that computationally generated fractal motifs are appropriated to be implemented as batik motif. However, human made batik motifs are less detail and some of them differ significantly with the computationally generated ones for tools used to draw batik and human aesthetic constraints

Cultural impacts on web: An empirical comparison of interactivity in websites of South Korea and the United Kingdom

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis explores cultural differences on interactive design features used in websites of South Korea and the United Kingdom from the perspective of both: professional website designers and end-users. It also investigates how the use of interactive design features from different cultures change over time. Four interaction types on websites; User to Interface (U2I), User to Content (U2C), User to Provider (U2P), and User to User (U2U) interactivity, and three interaction types on blogs; Blogger to Interface (B2I), Blogger to Content (B2C) and Blogger to Blogger (B2B) interactivity have been identified. Four cultural dimensions were used for the theoretical base of this study based on which four hypotheses were proposed in relation to the interaction types identified above; (a) High versus Low Context cultures for U2I, (b) High versus Low Uncertainty Avoidance for U2C, (c) High versus Low Power Distance for U2P and (d) Individualism versus Collectivism for U2U interactivity, in order to discover the effects of national cultures on interactivity in websites. We derived our own interactivity dimensions and mapped them to the four interaction types for websites and three for blogs. Interactive design features were derived from interactivity dimensions and examined in our studies. The findings revealed that there have been some changes towards homogeneity in the use of interactive design features on charity websites between South Korea and United Kingdom although there is still evidence of some cultural differences. With regard to end-users’ perspective, the result show that the use of interactive design features of blogs may be influenced by culture but this is only within a certain context. The findings also provide a valuable indication that users interacting within the same blog service can be considered as being shared concerns rather than shared national location, thus create a particular type of community in which bloggers are affected by social influence so they adopt a shared set of value, preferences and style that would indicate almost a common social culture. As a result, the cultural differences derived from their country of origin do not have that much impact

ASEAN perspectives on the interface design of location of web objects

The majority of web users are constructed with a single standard in mind, or a limited number of user profiles, usually from one country or culture. In order to accommodate the international growth of the Internet, this mono-cultural bias website design must change. If these important steps of a user-centered user-interface (UI) Web Development omitted, the website will be less successful, or may even be dysfunctional. People from different countries and cultures have certain expectations of a particular site that may differ significantly from other countries/ cultures. This study involves the analysis of user perspectives where individuals from different countries and cultures expect a specific web-related object to be located on an interface design. Based on previous studies and is named after its location on the object analysis of user perspectives for the interface design with 94 individuals from 10 ASEAN countries, this paper aims to investigate location of web objects, “Internal links”, “External links”, “Search”, “Login” and “Advertisements”. This study will hope to be able to improve the accuracy of regional perspectives are now recorded. The method of adaptivity from previous studies was used, contains an overview of the browser window, six horizontal and seven vertical grid-based namely, Geometric 42 Grids, on the expected location of the web objects interface design. The goal of the user tests was to examine the perspective of users with different cultural backgrounds. When comparing the final results with previous studies, the following results became clear

Cross-Cultural Redesign Based on the Cultural Differences Between Finland and China

With the rapid development of world economic and technology, more and more multinational companies, international business, cross-cultural designs have appeared in people’s lives. However, the cultural differences among different cultures affect numerous aspects of economic cooperation and design direction. In this thesis, based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Finnish and Chinese were chose as 2 culture groups which were used to analyze how cultural differences influence on human mindsets and the design-related work, especially website user interface design. A Finnish company’s website (including its design style and the related website content) were redesigned to meet Chinese users’ needs and preferences. 8 Chinese website design implications were summarized at last. At the beginning of this thesis, the theoretical background and related work of crosscultural design and website design were provided. Website design principles and current design trends were presented. Then, the Geert Hofstede’s culture dimensions were introduced. According to the results of the Hofstede’s model, the cultural differences between Finland and China were summarized. By comparing the cultural differences and design differences, totally 24 UI design differences were concluded to support the following design work. Subsequently, semi-structured interviews and online questionnaire investigation were conducted to study on how Chinese users feel about using Finnish websites and participating in Finnish projects, as well as local Chinese users’ preferences and website using habits. Combining the results of cultural model analysis and user research work, as well as the design principles and trends summarized in the related work, the Finnish company - Demola’s website and project concept was redesigned. After redesigning work, user evaluation (including 3 focus groups, totally 6 participants) was conducted to examine whether the redesigned website conforms to the usage habits of Chinese local users. After completing the redesign work and user evaluation, design implications for Chinese web service design are summarized in order to help designers from other cultures to create the website for Chinese users

Reflecting on the usability of research on culture in designing interaction

The concept of culture has been attractive to producers of interactive\ud systems who are willing to design useful and relevant solutions to users\ud increasingly located in culturally diverse contexts. Despite a substantial body of\ud research on culture and technology, interaction designers have not always been\ud able to apply these research outputs to effectively define requirements for\ud culturally diverse users. This paper frames this issue as one of understanding of\ud the different paradigms underpinning the cultural models being applied to\ud interface development and research. Drawing on different social science theories,\ud the authors discuss top-down and bottom-up perspectives in the study of users‟\ud cultural differences and discuss the extent to which each provides usable design\ud knowledge. The case is made for combining bottom-up and top-down perspectives\ud into a sociotechnical approach that can produce knowledge useful and usable by\ud interaction designers. This is illustrated with a case study about the design of\ud interactive systems for farmers in rural Kenya