Session page: http://webexsf2008.crowdvine.com/talk/view/241

Aaron Marcus
Date: Tuesday, April 22
Time: 9:00 - 12:00PM

Presented by Aaron Marcus (Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A)). User interfaces for Web 2.0, whether on desktop or mobile platforms, reach across culturally diverse user communities, sometimes within a single country/language group, and certainly across the globe. If user interfaces are to be usable, useful, and appealing to such a wide range of users, if social networks are to produce the hoped for communities and revenues,

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A website's images often confuse and annoy people.

If you are reinventing metaphors for people you then have to train or entice people to take advantage of what you have to offer.

How many of you develop user scenarios for the products you develop?
How people participate will differe from country to country and culture to culture.

By paying attention to the needs of another culture, the company was able to fit better.

How can we use visual cues to understand structure and process?

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Recent innovations:

Hyperbolic Browser
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=Hyperbolic+Browser&btnG=Google+Search

Tree Maps
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=tree+maps&btnG=Search

Table Lens
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=table+lens&btnG=Search

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Shift evaluation techniques when necessary...
In india after a focus group was not yielding criticism of a mobile phone, tester went outside and pretended like she was having trouble with the phone. It propted people (mostly men) to offer help and weigh in with opinions of the phone.

To get evaluations of travel reservation system, a "Bollywood movie" was made where sympathetic character needed to get to a wedding quickly. Audiences reacted to user interface issues they wouldn't complain about in focus groups.

Culture affects every aspect of toolmaking and signmaking. ... Think about what users need in certain contexts.

Meaning comes from both what the designer and what the user brings to the artifact.

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Crossing cultures:

DailmerChrystler - site obviously made by Germans though was supposed to serve U.S. and German and presumably other countries... but did it?

FedEx vs DHL for muslim country:
FedEx showed woman on home page with bare arms, DHL had only men and most in shirts and ties.
"Once you start showing people, you get into issues of what's appropriate."

Arabia Online - While the site was written in English, the layout was in Arabic, with the design going from right to left instead of left to right.

Clausen: Lifestyle groups are not anthropological / cultural groups. People can "play roles."

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Understand the difference between High vs Low uncertainty avoidance.

Implications for high UX design
High
Keep it simple
Reveal results, implications of actions
Make aattempt to prevent looping becoming lost in cyberspace
Use constraings taks animations models to reduce "user error"
Carefully encode meaning

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Even though designs evolve to be more modern and more sophisticated, some culture differences still persist.

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Implications for UX sdesign - Longterm Time Orientation from Hofstede's Culture Model

:: Practice is more important than theory
:: Accmplishing the task is sufficient; Expertise is not required
:: A Personal network provides resources of achievement (Chinese Guanxi principle of social relationships)

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Web 2.0 vs 1.0

Linkiness vs sickiness

"People can esaily be overloaded with all the possible resources"
New focus on relationship management

Key Web strategy: Co-create, connect and customize

Audience domain of Geeks (1.0) Mass amateurs (2.0)
... what are the implications of this?

"Data inside" is the next Intel Inside; Web 2.0 sites seek to own unique data sets

Green is the new gray
Bright cheery colors
green is the unofficial color of web 2.0 colors

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Scrapbooking is having a growing influence on US web design

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We saw a movement toward similarities (4 years later - airlines) I believe that due to shared communication, there will be a lot of converging of some patterns, but I also believe there will be fundamental differences that will be very good for specific cultures.

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Mobile devices - how culture differences influence SMS
Previous conference attendee: "Our means of entering chinese into SMS is almost inhumane."

When Aaron asked one of his grad students why the Chinese are so into texting, the response was "Are you kidding, this is the only way we can meet girls?"

The (cultural) difficulties are forgotten.