The given research aims at analysing and evaluating the necessity to differentiate user interfaces on the web for various culture
groups, as well as at producing recommendations for improving the ergonomics of the web resources targeting multicultural
audience.
Nowadays, cross-cultural problem is one of the basic things to consider when creating e- resource focused on different cultures.
Since the advent of using information technology for delivery of information, new tools and methods to present it have occurred.
Some of them both partly decrease and increase psychological tension of the process of acquiring knowledge. According to G.
Uzilevsky (Uzilevsky, 2000), ergonomic semiotics is a scientific practice, which studies the problems common to semiotics,
linguistics and ergonomics, and is able to resolve a number of problems associated with the need to make information intelligible
to the target audience, depending on the cognitive specificity caused by cultural differences. In the era of worldwide Internet’s
intromission to most of areas of life, the study of cross-cultural aspects of ergonomic semiotics is the most important.
The book aims at describing the specifics of organizing the user interfaces in different cultures and at providing practical
recommendations for developing culture-sensitive interfaces. The object of the research is the culture groups of the Web resource
target audience. The subject of the research is a possibility of grouping them in order to determine the number of the site
interface options required and to predict the degree of dissatisfaction with the site interface for different culture groups of the
target audience. Pragmatic factors must necessarily be taken into account during the process of creating and monitoring
resources aimed at multicultural audience. There are different cognitive models of perception and processing of information in
the eastern (collectivist and inclined to dialectic) cultures and the western (individualistic and inclined to formal logic) cultures.
In the West, the information is mostly directly perceived through the prism of person’s individual perception and is superimposed
on the existing information background. In the East, users simply collect information without personal critical reflection during
the consumption of the information content.
On this basis, determination of the nature of user interface and establishment of the principles of development of efficient and
convenient sign vehicles to communicate with different types of software and hardware should be included to the purposes of
ergonomic semiotics. For this investigation, cross-cultural context for the user interface development will be the object of the
most interest, because of the need to adapt information for cognitive specificity of different cultures. In the above-mentioned
context, ergonomic semiotics offers the following research areas: • Identifying and examining approaches to creation and usage of
user interface as an interactive multi-level system in different cultures;
• Color code in different cultures;
• Iconic language in different cultures;
• Music code in different cultures;
• Specific parameters of users’ behavior on the sites due to the specifics of thinking and acting in different cultural groups.
Theoretical and methodological framework for this study is the following: the works of Geert Hofstede on cultural dimensions,
Aaron Marcus’ works on the culture-sensitive interfaces development, statistical research in the field of conversion conducted by
Forrester Research Inc. and Listrak agencies, research in the field of the Russian Internet users network activity conducted by
TNS and a number of other studies mentioned as the reference. The empirical basis of the research is the information about
cultural dimensions of 110 countries from the work »Cultures and Organizations 3rd edition 2010″ (by Geert Hofstede), the
results of the online survey in the anonymous multicultural internet-community 4chan.org/int and data of the authorial insider’s
view.
See more:How culture shapes emotions