Case Study: Cross-Cultural Preference of UI Language Components, Cultural Markers - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 115

100

80%

75

50

20%

25

10% 10%

0

Left Right Top Bottom

FIGURE 8.32 Next image expectation in the Czech sample.

reading direction; the respondents also expected the narration to develop towards the
center of the screen. Also, a horizontal direction of development was more preferred,
because it retained the eye level at the same height. The bottom direction was chosen
because it followed the scrolling pattern on a webpage. (See Figure 8.32.)

Discussion/conclusion.
The hypotheses were partially supported by the results. The prevalent reading direc-
tion in the Chinese sample seems to have a strong influence on the expectation of
dynamics of a visual composition, that is, a visual narrative. Although the vast ma-
jority of respondents grounded their choice on a natural reading direction, there were
pronounced differences between them. These results should be triangulated with the
data from similar questions. Bottom and left directions rated second in both of the
groups.

29) Which of the following pair of items would you prefer?
For this question, we used the three sets of pairings presented in Figure 8.33.

Chinese
Hypotheses.
• Curves stand for softness (and would be better perceived), while straight
lines stand for hardness.
• Rounded corners (curvilinear patterns) are better perceived than square cor-
ners (geometrical patterns).

Results summary.
The most favorite shapes with 45% of the answers had radius features. More than
half (52%) preferred icons, windows coming second (35%), and dividers third (22%).
Radius shapes were regarded as most balanced, soft, comfortable, and beautiful; also,
most suitable for inner content in a squared frame. Fully rounded or square/straight
shapes were almost even with 28% and 27% of the answers. From the rounded