Title :
Designing interfaces for culturally diverse users
Author :
Waldegg, Paula Bourges ; Scrivener, Stephen A R
Author_Institution :
Design Res. Centre, Derby Univ., UK
Abstract :
Cultural diversity is a phenomenon of increasing interest to HCI designers given the development of global markets and multi-user applications, such as Internet and CSCW. However, current HCI methods provide little specific guidance on how to design systems that are usable by a culturally heterogeneous user group. It is argued that the internalisation-localisation process, here called culturalisation, is inappropriate for shared applications because it deals with design for a specific, culturally homogeneous user group. This paper describes a study designed to examine the nature of Internet application usability problems due to cultural diversity. It is concluded that the main issue is centred in the relation between representation and meaning. Finally, a HCI design method that considers issues of cultural diversity, called Non-specific Representations Method (NSRM), is outlined
Keywords :
Internet; groupware; social aspects of automation; user interfaces; CSCW; HCI design; Internet; Internet application usability; NSRM; culturally diverse users; global markets; interfaces; multi-user applications; non-specific Representations Method; shared applications; Cultural differences; Design methodology; Globalization; Guidelines; Human computer interaction; Internet; Process design; Software design; Usability; Web server;
Conference_Titel :
Computer-Human Interaction, 1996. Proceedings., Sixth Australian Conference on
Conference_Location :
Hamilton
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-7525-X
DOI :
10.1109/OZCHI.1996.560148