Case Study: Cross-Cultural Preference of UI Language Components, Cultural Markers - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 146

preference for cartoon imagery, navigation tools, visible and interaction grammar of
menus and commands were:

• Menus starting with a verb are considered more natural than those starting
with nouns. Although a noun and verb menu was regarded as easy to under-
stand, a verb-driven menu was preferred in that it showed a clear purpose to
the user. In contrast, the Czech sample expressed a strong preference towards
nouns as these were the most intelligible.
• Cartoon imagery (e.g., little animals) plays an important role in communi-
cation. The cartoons improve users' moods and help recall different appli-
cations better than characters.

Unsupported hypotheses were:

• Menus progressively disclosing a narrative (e.g., starting with “I want to ... ”)

are considered more natural.
• Theme-driven menus (e.g., starting with “I want to

... ”) or role-driven menus

(e.g., starting with “I am ... ”) are more logical than menus driven by at-

tributes or concepts.
• The proposed interaction is best understood when starting from a concrete
situation (a use case, e.g., “I want to ... ”) rather than user role (e.g., “I

am ... ”).

51) Which of the following combinations of menu items do you find more
natural?
Chinese
Hypothesis.
Menus starting with a verb are considered more natural than those starting with nouns.
(See Figure 8.52.)

Results summary.
The largest group of respondents (40%) preferred verb-only menus. The reasons were,
the verb-driven menu expresses the purpose or action the best, and links with nouns to
complete the intended action. A combination of nouns and verbs was chosen second
(35%), mainly because rigidly following one type of word would limit the possibilities
of expression. Third came a menu formed just by nouns (25%). The reason was that
nouns better express their meaning, a verb is too general. (See Figure 8.53.)

Visit Explore Learn Support Shop Search Gallery Exhibitions Lectures Sponsors Gifts Site

(a) Verb-only menu (b) Noun-only menu

Gallery Explore Lectures Support Gifts Search

(c) Verb and noun menu

FIGURE 8.52 Preference for menu types (noun and verb combinations).