Web/Hypermedia - CROSS-CULTURAL DESIGN - HANDBOOK OF HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS

CROSS-CULTURAL DESIGN

3.2 Web/Hypermedia

Although designing for the Web and hypermedia is relatively new compared to conventional GUI design, the key components for a good user interface design can be applied to Web and hypermedia design as well.

Information structure and searching are the two important aspects for Web design. The information structure of the Web is concerned with how to organize the information and how to navigate Web users.

Searching is concerned with what searching mechanisms should be provided to users and how to present searching results.

3.2.1 Information Structure (Navigation and Hyperlinks)

As noted in previous section, people around the world hold different thinking styles. The differences in thinking could affect their performance interacting with computers. Researchers have highlighted that different cultures often focus on different attributes of the same items or objects (Choong, 1996; Choong and Salvendy, 1999). How items or functions should be grouped in pages and how links on a website or buttons and menus on the user interface should be labeled are highly affected by culture. The information of the website should be structured in association with the target user’s cultural traits.

Marcus and Gould (2000) contend that navigation will be impacted by cultures. Users from cultures that feel anxiety about uncertain or unknown matters would prefer navigation schemes intended to prevent being lost.

Luna et al. (2002) suggested that websites should be structured to conform to the target cultures, for example, the site could have a hierarchical or a search- based structure, depending on whether the target visitors

belong to a high-context culture (e.g., Japan) in which hierarchical structures might be preferred or a low- context culture (e.g., Germany) in which search-based structures might be preferred. Furthermore, Luna et al.

(2002) pointed out that it is important to provide users with a culturally congruent site by offering links to pages that address the respective values, symbols, heroes, and rituals of a particular culture. The culturally appropriate navigation patterns will lead to less confusing and more satisfactory user experience.

Rau and Liang (2003a, 2003b) pointed to well- designed navigational supports to combat the tendency toward disorientation of users in high-context cultures.

Rau and Liang (2003a) used a survey designed by Plocher et al. (2001) to classify Web users as either high or low context on Hall’s communication style dimension. They postulated that communication style would affect how people interact with information systems, particularly nonlinear, hypertext systems such as the Web. In their experiments, they found that high- context people browsed information faster and required fewer links to ﬁnd information than did low-context users. However, high-context users also had a greater tendency to become disoriented and lost their sense of location and direction in hypertext. Low-context users were slower to browse information and linked more pages but were less inclined to get lost. In another study, Rau and Liang (2003b) investigated the effects of communication style on user performance in browsing a Web-based service. The results showed that participants with high-context communication style were more disoriented during browsing than were those with low-context communication style.

Cyr and Trevor-Smith (2004) conducted an empiri- cal comparison of German, Japanese, and U.S. website characteristics. They found preference for different navigation and search capabilities across different cultures.

The Japanese sites were twice as likely to use symbolic navigation tools as were the German or the American sites. Preferences for vertical and horizontal menus are statistically signiﬁcant. German and Japanese sites used a “return to home” button twice as much as the U.S.

sites. As to the type of hyperlinks used, the results found that the number of external links and the func- tionality of links differ across cultures. External links are used in almost all Japanese sites, compared to only two-thirds of U.S. and German sites. The Japanese use symbols for links signiﬁcantly more than do German and U.S. sites. They concluded that providing navigation appropriate to cultures is important in order to avoid the “disorientation” when users make navigational errors when searching for information.

Lo and Gong (2005) studied the cultural impacts on the format and layout design of e-commerce websites.

They examined 50 leading e-commerce websites in the United States and 50 leading e-commerce websites in China. They found that the U.S. sites showed a clear trend of using blue color for hyperlinks. But in the Chinese sites three colors, black, blue, and red hyperlinks, are equally likely to be used. Although

there is some evidence on the emergence of a global e-commerce culture or some common standards on the color of hyperlinks, there is also clear evidence of the need for e-commerce website designers to consider the impact of local culture, for example, the higher frequency of using red color in Chinese websites.

Lo and Gong (2005) also examined the navigation model of the e-commerce websites in the United States and China. In terms of direction of navigation, ﬁve navigation models are possible: left oriented, right oriented, top oriented, bottom oriented, and center oriented. In terms of the appearance of navigation buttons, it can be text based or it can be GUI based. The results showed that the Chinese sites favor the top-oriented navigation model, while the United States is roughly equal in left-, top- and center-oriented navigation models. It is not surprising that Chinese sites favor the top-oriented navigation model, because traditionally Chinese writings are read from top to bottom and right to left. As to the appearance of navigation buttons, it was found that U.S. sites favor GUI-based navigation buttons, while Chinese sites favor text-based navigation buttons. They further discussed the reasons that Chinese sites employ the top-oriented and text-based navigation model on the cultural aspects. Yahoo is one of the early entries to China’s e-commerce market, and it was quite successful. The Chinese Yahoo site employs the top-oriented and text-based navigation model.

This mode was also used by the other two leading e-commerce sites in China: sina.com and sohu.com.

China has a high-power-distance, collectivism, and high-uncertainty-avoidance society, the success of the above three websites are clearly recognized, and thus subsequent entries into the Chinese e-commerce market tend to imitate their approach using the same navigation model. In the United States, the situation is quite different. Because the United States is rated higher in individualism, a greater variety of navigation styles and site design approaches were found at U.S. sites.

Kralisch et al. (2005) studied the impact of culture on website navigation behavior. In their study, they were concerned with the impact of cultural dimensions (Hofstede’s long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance and Hall’s mono-/polychronicity) on user behavior. They collected behavioral data by sorting through records of navigation steps in the Web server log of a frequently used international multilingual website. The results demonstrated the impact of culture on website navigation behavior. Members of short-term oriented cultures spent less time on visited pages than members of long-term oriented cultures. In addition, more information is collected by members of high- uncertainty-avoidance countries than members of low- uncertainty-avoidance countries. Finally, monochromic cultures showed more linear navigation patterns than polychromic cultures and vice versa. They recom- mended that for monochromic users information should be placed in linear order and links should emphasize hierarchical structure. Table 8 provides guidelines for information architecture.

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Table 8 Guidelines for Information Architecture

Supporting Research/

Category Guidelines Best Practice