Case Study: Cross-Cultural Preference of UI Language Components, Cultural Markers - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 112

FIGURE 8.27 Ideogram matrix to discover reading patterns. The characters are chosen with
a similar number of strokes, so that all of them look very similar at first sight and do not attract
the reader's eye.
• Left-to-right lines of text are easier to read than top-to-bottom and right-to-
left.
• There is a close similarity between sequential information structure in lan-
guage and horizontal structure in visual composition.
Results summary.
70% of the respondents preferred reading by lines from the left, as this is the prevalent
reading habit learned from school and used also when scanning or searching some
specific information. However, 30% of the respondents used other strategies when
scanning a screen, such as starting from the center or from the bottom-right corner,
then continuing in horizontal or vertical lines. (See Figures 8.27 and 8.28.)
Czech
Results summary.
Searching by lines was the choice of 25%; however, other strategies as a whole gained
60%. (See Figure 8.29.)
Discussion/conclusion.
The hypotheses were supported by the results. Interestingly, reading by lines (left to
right) was the single largest strategy in the Czech sample, but only formed a quarter