Case Study: Cross-Cultural Preference of UI Language Components, Cultural Markers - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 140

for communism/government/flag (C2: 53%), and the symbol for house demolishing
(C3: only one respondent knew the precise meaning, whereas 37% recognized at least
the general meaning of “removal”). According to some of the respondents, Chinese
characters could add some spirit to the icons, but might appear unattractive. When
used, they should not be too complicated. The foreign icons tend to be more concise
and visually appealing.
Czech
The respondents were presented with Czech and international applications icons:
• First row: Czech application icons (C)
• Second row: international application icons (W)
Results summary.
The Western set of icons scored better compared to the Czech set. The meaning of the
encryption tool was recognized almost by all of the respondents (W4: 95%), followed
by the movie player (W3: 85%), and editing tool (30%). The meaning of the mapping
application was recognized by all of the respondents (C3: 100%), followed by public
transport ticketing (C1: 90%), and chatting application (C4: 25%).
Discussion/conclusion.
The hypothesis was not supported by the results in either group. The icons for the
test were chosen from a Chinese software portal containing applications both from
local and foreign developers. The Czech part was taken from a portal of Android
applications for the Czech users. For testing the cultural background we chose three
icons containing Chinese characters and one with a communist symbol. For the foreign
symbols we chose image-only icons: two containing tools (scissors, key) and two
containing objects (helmet, movie film). Interestingly, the foreign icon set proved to
be more understandable among the respondents. However, apart from the European-
style helmet icon (with only 55% responses in the broad meaning space), all of the
rest represented items were used in the local culture as well. Therefore, a future test
should select visuals with more different semantics.
46) Are you aware of any recurring patterns in the UI?
Chinese
Hypotheses.
• Users can recognize visual patterns occurring in the UI.
• Copied elements are better perceived than original elements.
Results summary.
All of the respondents were able to recognize visual design patterns in the applications
they would use. Some of the respondents preferred the similar layouts over different
ones. Also, they were able to give examples of similar patterns from websites focusing
on social networking, shopping, news portals, search engines, as well as applications
for instant messaging and games.