Introduction - Cross-Cultural Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design - page 4

that is why architecture can provide important implications for the design space of
HCI/UX. The HCI ideologies present in the UI are discussed in Section 2.3, “Ideology,
persuasion.”
Thought, or consciousness, and all mental phenomena are “higher level features
of the brain,” that are “caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain”
(Searle, 2002, p. 18). As such, consciousness processes sensory data from differ-
ent sources. Searle continues, that consciousness and intentionality build language
(Searle, 2009, p. 64). In the context of the present work, we conceive intention as
design, and intentionality as a designing force. Therefore, for the purposes of our
work, we understand the linguistic elements present in the UI (or, the UI language)
as a product of a thinking process of a designer. Thought can produce designs, or
we can identify it with design itself. As etymology reminds us, design comes from
the Latin designare, to mark out; composed from de- + signare to mark (Merriam-
Webster, 2013c). As a verb it means to conceive or execute a plan or a scheme, and
as a noun it stands for a project, sketch, or pattern. By marking a material we leave
a sign in it. Therefore, we inform it. Design is thus the nexus between the immate-
rial (intention) and the material (matter) that informs (from the Latin informare , see
MerriamWebster, 2013f). By giving a form or a character to something, we commu-
nicate information. A similar argument is put forward by Flusser (1999). Following
the above definitions, we see design as closely related to semiotics (through signs
and intentionality) and to information science (through information). In the context
of UX, design finds its application in industrial design, interaction design, and com-
munication design. Industrial design is related to material (tangible) artifacts, whose
operation is guided by interaction design. The latter is supported by communication
design through immaterial cues, which inform the users on the operation results. In
this work we shall focus on the dynamic and immaterial applications of design, i.e.,
interaction and communication design.
Language constitutes a frame for thought and experience by creating conven-
tions. Conventions are arbitrary, but once they are settled they give the participants
a right to specific expectations. They are normative (Searle, 2009, p. 87). Conven-
tions lead to institutions. “Language is essentially constitutive of institutional reality”
(Searle, 1995, p. 59). Language completely interpenetrates with experience (Sapir,
1949, p. 11). Therefore, when a designer wants to create a certain UX, he or she
should constitute it primarily through the system of UI language. And, by that the
designer acts upon a user's natural language and thought. Because language creates
cultural conventions, culture stands therefore on natural language. Language is used
for cultural accumulation and historical transmission: proverbs, medicine formulae,
standardized prayers, folk tales, standardized speeches, song texts, genealogies, etc.
(Ibid., p. 17). “Every complex of a culture and a lge [language] carries with it an
implicit metaphysics; a model of the universe, composed of notions and assumptions
organized into a harmonious system which is valid for framing statements about what
goes on in the world as the carriers of the culture see it” (Whorf, 2012, p. 361). This
model of the universe sets the basic ideological frame for our interaction, both in the
social context, as well as the computer context. Social interaction is crucial for the
experience with the environment, because the interaction is processed in natural lan-
guage. According to Sapir, in a society “even the simplest environmental influence is
either supported or transformed by social forces. Hence any attempt to consider even