Case Study: Cross-Cultural Preference of UI Language Components, Cultural Markers - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 132

color, rating etc.). In contrast to the Chinese results, the Czech respondents
would put size after gender (instead of purpose), purpose instead of price,
and price last, thus omitting color and rating.
• The use of Chinese calligraphy was praised by the users.
The unsupported hypotheses:
• Icons presenting images are more intelligible than those containing charac-
ters.
• There is a close similarity between sequential information structure in lan-
guage and horizontal structure in visual composition. Noun (folder) and
adjective (star attribute) would mimic their positions in a sentence (i.e., the
attribute precedes the subject).
• Long textual pages are considered more useful than texts on more screens
because the former contain all the information in one place (show more
context).
• Icons with symbols coming from users' own cultural background are better
perceived and understood than those from a foreign culture.
• Given that most of the websites contain mostly text, text would be regarded
the most useful media. In the Chinese sample, pictorial media (images,
videos) had the highest acceptance and credibility. In contrast, the Czech
respondents preferred images and texts to videos and sound, both in terms
of the efficiency of information transmission and trustworthiness.
• A localized UI would be better accepted than a nonlocalized UI. The re-
spondents were accustomed to using foreign, nonlocalized applications, so
localization was their least concern. On the other hand, speed and usabil-
ity were major concerns among users. Also, originality and aesthetics were
highly praised. The Czech results, on the whole, and in contrast to the Chi-
nese results, showed a preference for features instead of color.
39) Please group the following objects (using one line per group).
Chinese
Hypothesis.
Users tend to group objects according to intrinsic relations rather than categories.
Results summary.
The largest group (45%) of the respondents categorized the UI objects by a category
(e.g., similarity, areas of presence), followed by almost the same number of responses
(40%) categorizing the objects according to the relations between them (e.g., what
can manipulate what, what can include what). (See Figure 8.39.)
Czech
Results summary.
The largest group (40%) of the respondents categorized the objects by relation; the
others were divided between category, and a blend of the two. (See Figure 8.40.)