Intra- and Inter-Cultural Usability in Computer-Supported Collaboration
Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 5, Issue 4, August 2010, pp. 172 - 197
Abstract
In this paper, we argue for an increased scope of universal design to encompass usability and accessibility for not only users with physical disabilities but also for users from different cultures. Towards this end, we present an empirical evaluation of cultural usability in computer-supported collaboration. The premise of this research is that perception and appropriation of socio-technical affordances vary across cultures. In an experimental study with a computer-supported collaborative learning environment, pairs of participants from similar and different cultures (American-American, American-Chinese, and Chinese-Chinese) appropriated affordances and produced technological intersubjectivity. Cultural usability was analyzed through the use of performance and satisfaction measures. The results show a systemic variation in efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction between the two cultural groups. Implications of these findings for the research and practice of usability, in general, and cultural usability, in particular, are discussed in this paper.
Practitioner’s Take Away
The following are the key points of this paper:
- Demand characteristics, in the context of cultural usability, refer to the study of expectations, evaluator-participant relationships, and cultural norms for appraisal and attribution. Demand characteristics should be given careful consideration in the design of cultural usability evaluations and in the interpretation of the results.
- For usability evaluations involving participants from social collectivist cultures with interactional concerns for deference and harmony-maintenance, it might be beneficial to use questionnaires that solicit both Likert-type ratings and open-ended comments.
- Participants from highly collectivistic cultures (such as the Chinese participants of this experimental study) with a high-context communication style and a field-dependent perceptual style might offer higher overall ratings to a system despite offering lower subjective ratings for the constituent parts of the systems.
- Participants from highly individualistic cultures (such as the American participants of this experimental study) with a low-context communication style and a field-independent perceptual style might offer lower overall ratings to a system despite offering higher subjective ratings for the constituent parts of the systems.
- Participants from highly collectivistic cultures with a greater emphasis on deference and harmony-maintenance (the Chinese participants in the context of this study) might make a higher number of positive comments compared to negative comments during usability evaluation despite higher negative ratings on Likert-type questionnaires.
- Participants from highly individualistic cultures with a lesser emphasis on deference and harmony-maintenance (the American participants in the context of this study) might make fewer positive comments and more negative comments during usability evaluation despite higher positive ratings on Likert-type questionnaires.
- Efficacy of open-ended comments might be higher for inter-cultural user groups when compared to intra-cultural user groups.
- Despite significant differences in objective measures of usability, there might be no significant differences in performance or achievement of the primary task. In other words, there is a possibility of a “performance preference paradox” in the usability evaluation of computer-supported collaboration systems.
- It might be more productive and informative to conceive of cultural variation at the level of human-computer interaction as a variation in the perception and appropriation of action-taking possibilities and meaning-making opportunities relate to actor competencies and system capabilities and the differences in social relationships and expectations rather than homeostatic cultural dimensional models or stereotypical typologies.
- Design the technological capabilities of the system taking into account the competencies of the users. Design should focus on what action-taking possibilities and meaning-making opportunities users can psychologically perceive and sociologically appropriate. Design for sustaining, transforming, and creating traditional and novel configurations of social relationships and interactions in socio-technical systems.
Article Contents
Download Article
Intra- and Inter-Cultural Usability in Computer-Supported Collaboration