Discussion and Conclusion - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 156

C) Not supported
Layout.
• Real information (details, concrete image) is expected on the bottom of the
screen. The hypothesis was not supported by the results. The majority of
Chinese respondents put real information in the middle level of the screen
(middle row in the matrix), overlaying it partly on the new and ideal infor-
mation.
• Square and double-square layout would be more preferred because it is
widely used in Asia (the symbol for Earth, Japanese buildings). Instead,
respondents preferred a golden-section layout, such as 16:9 or 4:3.
Color.
• UIs with the following foreground colors tend to be regarded as more aes-
thetic: white and yellow.
• Background color is more important than foreground color. Interestingly, the
Czech sample results supported our hypothesis and valued the background
very highly.
• UIs with the following background/foreground color combination are most
appealing: white on blue, white on gray blue, and white on purple. The
background color preference was shared among the groups, except for lime,
which was chosen by the Chinese. For foreground, blue was a favorite for
the Chinese, while red and silver were for the Czechs. From the shared
color combinations, black on white stood for clarity and naturalness for the
Chinese, while for the Czechs it indicated contrast and simplicity.
Symbol.
• 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 foreign culture.
• Given that most of the websites contain mostly text, text would be regarded
the most useful medium. 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, in terms of
both the efficiency of information transmission and trustworthiness.