Cross-Platform Cross-Cultural User Experience

Abstract

Many interactive systems can be accessed across a range of different platforms, enabling cross-platform services and allowing users to migrate their tasks from one platform to another. The aim of this study is to investigate the culture-related experiential side of using multiple interactive systems across platforms by studying users from different cultural backgrounds. In this paper, we present our findings from a user study of five cross-platform services. We conducted the user study in Australia and Saudi Arabia. Participants in Australia and Saudi Arabia interacted with English and Arabic versions of the services respectively. We used think-aloud protocol, observation and questionnaires to gather data. During our experiments, each participant performed a set of inter-related tasks using a cross-platform service across two devices: laptop and mobile phone. We identified five objective cultural factors (direction, translation, meaning of icons, formatting, and typing interface) that influence cross-platform user experience. The power distance and uncertainty avoidance subjective cultural dimensions also influenced user perception of cross-platform services. Based on our findings and analyses, we propose a design model that encompasses these cultural factors to guide designing international cross-platform services.

Contributors

Khalid Majrashi

Margaret Hamilton

Alexandra L. Uitdenbogerd

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 1-13

Affiliations

School of Computer Science & IT

RMIT University, Australia

Institute of Public Administration, Saudi Arabia

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.20

Copyright statement: © Majrashi et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings British HCI 2016 - Fusion, Bournemouth, UK.

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 30

Conference location: Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Conference date: 11 - 15 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Fusion

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.20

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing