Optimized web design in the Saudi culture

Internet browsing is a daily activity in people´s lives, due to an increase in the number of websites and web applications that touch their interests. The culture of the Internet user has become an essential concern to be considered in website design; differences in culture make users react differently to different websites, and the statement `one size fits all´, does not apply with websites. Most researches have studied the effect of western cultures on web design. This research attempts to understand the Saudi culture influence on web design, since Saudi culture is unique in its aspects of religion, customs, and traditions. This study analyzes the Saudi culture and how it can influence web design, by asking certain questions to Saudi Internet users through a questionnaire. These questions relate to some web design elements that can influence culture perception. SurveyMonkey.com is used to generate an online survey to be distributed to potential respondents in the Saudi forums, email, blackberry, and twitter. This online software was used for easy distribution amongst Saudi internet users, and was also used, as it can provide simple filtration results. Data was collected from 415 Internet users, 391 of whom were Saudi, whilst the remainders were from other nationalities and therefore the nonSaudi respondents´ questionnaires were excluded from the total number of responses. The main result of this study shows that around 82% of Saudi Internet users are below thirty (30) years old. Furthermore, there are other results in the research that help identify other Saudi user website requirements. One result shows that the majority of Saudis prefer not to use credit cards for online shopping and human photos need to be used in websites with certain considerations. The remaining results are exposed to more of the design elements preferred by Saudi users. Therefore, Saudi cultural characteristics need to be considered in web design, in order to attain their requirements a- d satisfaction, and the author has recommended some outlines for international web design agencies, as a means of enhancing their design elements to meet the Saudi user needs.