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Intercultural communication in a Global World
The document discusses the complexities of intercultural communication in a globalized context, focusing on the impact of culture, language, and technology on user experience design. It highlights varying communication styles across high-context and low-context cultures and evaluates the influence of digital literacy and demographics. The content includes frameworks for assessing culturally diverse websites, practical design considerations, and references for further reading.
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Intercultural communication in a Global World
- 1. Intercultural Communication in a Globalworld Mrs E.A. Draffan Vanissa Wanick March 2015
- 2. Plan for sessions •Intro - who we are what we have done • Presentation • Discussion • Practical session - groups discussing elements of intercultural communication - individual needs, language and culture. • Feedback • Tea Break • Explain framework for evaluating culturally different websites - issues arising • Look at websites • Feedback • Wrap up
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- 4. The Journey Please referto: http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/betterdesign/process/
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- 6. Ability and Skills Competencyin ICT often learnt out of school – impacts on use in education (Thorne, 2003a) - multiplicity of devices using digital multimedia Internet- mediated communication Lack clear visual cues Reduced social context Misinterpretation
- 7. Demographics “People don’t comepreassembled but are glued together by life” (Le Doux, J. 2002) • Everyday experiences change the way we interact – level of digital literacy expertise, age, gender, environment, culture … percentage of populations above 65 years old by 2030 across the globe http://sapientprivatewealthmanagement.com/media/2010/10/Demographics-Around-the-World.pdf
- 8. Language Internet-mediated global English– Netspeak (Crystal, D. 2001) • Informal and friendly may suit individualistic cultures but “prove disturbing for unprepared members of a collectivist culture” (O’Dowd, 2001) o salutations, o assertive rather than questioning, o aggressive but apologetic. (Marcoccia, 2012) but… • “anonymity can play a positive role in intercultural communication.” (Marcoccia, 2012) those who hesitate in f2F may communicate more when online.
- 9. Culture Culture is “essentiallyelusive, abstract and invisible” (Furstenberg et al., 2001) • Low-context (text and speech) v. High-context cultures (visual cues and silence) e.g. North European v. Far Eastern and Arab (Würtz, 2005). • Just because you are connected it does not mean you necessarily communicate enough to learn about a culture (Marcoccia, 2012) however… • Cyberspace shares its own cultural practices within a virtual community – use English and follow the rules of netiquette? (Ersoz, 2009) but may mean you reduce cultural understanding.
- 10. WVS Cultural Mapof the World The World Value Survey Cultural Map 2005-2008 – note “Each country is positioned according to its people’s values and not its geographical location.” http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_54
- 11. High Context Cultures(HC) Japan Arab Countries Greece Spain Italy England France North America Scandinavian Countries German-speaking Countries Low Context Cultures (LC) Source: Hall, E. and M. Hall (1990) Understanding Cultural Differences
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- 13. Hypotheses (Würtz, 2005) http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/wuertz.html 1.High Context (HC) cultures will, to a higher degree than Low Context (LC) culture websites, implement strategies for assimilating human presence on their websites. 2. HC cultures are likely to use more imagery and less text than their LC counterparts. 3. The imagery chosen on HC culture websites will reflect values characteristic of HC cultures, such as family values, whereas LC culture values will be present on LC culture websites. 4. The pages making up LC websites are expected to be consistent in their layout and colour schemes, whereas pages in HC websites are expected to be diverse.
- 14. More Cultural Dimensions: GeertHofstede • Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geert Hofstede, McGraw-Hill, 1991, 1997 • Hofstede examined IBM employees in 50 countries, 1978-83 • Statistically valid data and analysis • One limitation is that he says that each country has only one dominate culture • However research has shown that these dimensions are still useful today.
- 15. Hofstede’s 5 Dimensionsof Culture 1. Power-distance o high power distance cultures include many hierarchical levels, autocratic leadership, and the expectation of inequality and power differences, and are affiliated with HC cultures. o low power distance cultures are characterized by flat organization structures, consultative or participative management style, and the expectation of egalitarianism, especially evident in LC cultures.
- 16. Cultural Dimensions andGlobal Web UI Design (Marcus & Gould, 2000) http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=345238 High power distance: Malaysian University website. Low power distance: Dutch Educational website.
- 17. Hofstede’s 5 Dimensionsof Culture 2. Collectivism vs. individualism: o Collectivistic cultures prioritize group welfare over the goals of the individual. Tends to reflect HC cultures o Individualism emphasis is put on the goals and accomplishments of the individual rather than the group – relates to Low Context Cultures
- 18. Hofstede’s 5 Dimensionsof Culture 3. Femininity vs. masculinity o masculine cultures, the traditional distinctions are strongly maintained, while feminine cultures tend to collapse the distinctions and overlap gender roles (both men and women can exhibit modesty, tenderness, and a concern with both quality of life and material success.) o Traditional masculine work goals include earnings, recognition, advancement, and challenge. o Traditional feminine work goals include good relations with supervisors, peers, and subordinates; good living and working conditions; and employment security.
- 19. Hofstede’s 5 Dimensionsof Culture 4. Uncertainty avoidance o high uncertainty avoidance tend to have more formal rules, require longer career commitments, and focus on tactical operations rather than strategy. These cultures tend to be expressive; people talk with their hands, raise their voices, and show emotions. o low UA cultures tend to be more informal and focus more on long-range strategic matters than day-to-day operations. These cultures tend to be less expressive and less openly anxious;
- 20. Cultural Dimensions andGlobal Web UI Design (Marcus & Gould, 2000) http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=345238 High UA: Sabema Airlines website from Belgium. Low UA: British Airways website from United Kingdom.Long-
- 21. Hofstede’s 5 Dimensionsof Culture 5. Long- vs. short-term time orientation o Long-Term Orientation seemed to play an important role in Asian countries that had been influenced by Confucian philosophy over many thousands of years. o Western countries, by contrast, were more likely to promote equal relationships, emphasize individualism, focus on treating others as you would like to be treated, and find fulfilment through creativity and self-actualization
- 22. Practical Session Groups discussingelements of intercultural communication such as individual needs, language and culture.
- 23. Question? Does cyberspace symbolise ‘culturalstandardisation’ or does it allow for ‘cultural variations and local appropriation’?
- 24.
- 25. Discover Create Translate Develop Test Localisation Framework Cultural Context Dimensions Appropriateness Environment Demographics Language Impact onDesign Translation Technical Individual Needs Activity Skills Designers LinguistsDevelopers Visionary / User /Owner Users
- 26. The CAKE framework Advergames:games that carry a persuasive message RQ: What are the effective advergames affordances for cross- cultural consumer behaviour? RQ2: How can designers build effective advergames across cultures? - Mechanics, storyline, interface…? - A different game for each culture? - Findings show that players from Brazil prefer more the visual aspects of the game (characters, scenarios), if compared to British players - The advergames in the market are usually the same, just with translation of content What about games?
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- 28. Practical User interfaceddesign • Images: Images can easily offend, especially when people are involved and may also differ in approach to the type of image shown especially in the degrees of say violence and sexuality. • Colours: Colour is sometimes used to convey meaning or to help us focus on part of the page, but colour has a different meaning in different cultures. • Flow/Navigation: we look read a web page differently, we start at different points and then move our eye in different ways (some up and down across). Similarly navigation is differ not only in flow, but also what information we want to see first.
- 29. Colour Colour China JapanEgypt France United States Red Happiness Anger Danger Death Aristocracy Danger Stop Blue Heavens Clouds Villainy Virtue Faith Truth Freedom Peace Masculine Green Ming Dynasty Heavens Future Youth Energy Fertility Strength Criminality Safety Go Yellow Birth Wealth Power Grace Nobility Happiness Prosperity Temporary Cowardice Temporary White Death Purity Death Joy Neutrality Purity
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- 31. Practical User interfaced design •Text: This is not the same in all cultures in terms of character sets and the way language is used. • Number, Dates and Time formats: not all cultures have the same calendar or number format. • Metaphors/ Idioms: we often convey a new idea using a figure of speech that is not always understood in the same way by another culture or in another language. “Its raining cats and dogs!” French “Il pleut des cordes”, or it's raining ropes! Dutch “Het regent pijpestelen” it's raining steel pipes
- 32. Cultural Appropriateness A wayof speaking and writing? Direct English, formal and expressive Arabic, talking around a subject in Chinese and Japanese, not quite so direct in French or even Russian… Kaplan’s models of contrastive rhetoric (1966) • use polite terms and avoid slang or casual statements • describe any words that may have a double meaning • understand the use of gender as in many languages objects can be female or male rather than neuter as in the use of ‘it’ • avoid using images if you are not sure they explain your text clearly.
- 33. Need to alsothink about… • Space • Maintenance • Linking between sites • Contact for each version of your service http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/multilingual_websites.htm
- 34. Translation • Commercial, crowdsourcing,volunteering and automatic • Reverse translate! • Have a glossary of terms to hand • Some words simply do not work in other languages.
- 35. Technological Needs We havejust looked at Microsoft Windows, Android and iOS (Apple) - It is important to: o Separate resources from code. o Use Unicode and UTF-8. o Support string tables for each language, separate icons and images plus right to left user interface. o Support localised keyboard shortcuts. o Make sure keyboards and on-screen keyboards are supported for the intended languages on the target platform. o Make sure appropriate fonts are supported. o Allow the user to easily change the locale of the software.
- 36. Activity and Environment Multiplemeans of representation, expression and engagement to accommodate task, setting as well as ability/skill, demographics, language and culture. o representations to cater for individual preferences? Accessibility and Usability Business case for time / finance, skills / knowledge One version or multiple: o versions of the information for different regions? o representations depending on the type of content? o presentation depending on the technology used? Desktop, tablet, mobile etc
- 37.
- 38. News from aroundthe world • http://eisamay.indiatimes.com/ • http://www.aljazeera.net/portal • http://www.pravda.ru/ • http://www.4semanas.com/ • http://www.nhk.or.jp/ • http://www.xinhuanet.com/ • http://www.alithia.com.cy/ • http://www.amx.is/ • http://us.cnn.com/?hpt=ed_US • http://www.arib.info/
- 39. McDonalds global reach •http://www.mcdonalds.de/ • http://www.mcdonalds.ru/ • http://www.mcdonalds.es • http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome.html • http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/ • http://www.mcdonalds.com.cn/ • http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html • http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/ • http://www.mcdonalds.com.ar/ • http://mcdonalds.co.za/content/index.php
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- 42.
- 43. Understanding • Cultural Nuances oNational Cultural Dimensions o Cultural Appropriateness • Addressing Design • Language o Language impact on Layout o Translation options • Technical Issues • Individual Needs http://localisation.atbar.org/
- 44. References • Furstenberg etal., (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA project http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/furstenberg • LeDoux, J. (2002). Synaptic self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Penguin. • Thorne, S.L., (2003a). Artefacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/thorne • Crystal, D. (2001) Language and the Internet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) • O’Dowd, R. (2001) In search of a truly global network: hhtp://callej.org/journal/3- 1/o_dowd.html • Marcoccia, M. (2012) The internet, intercultural communication and cultural variation. Language and Intercultural Communication, 12:4, 353-36 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2012.722101 • Ersoz, S. (2009) Cultures in Cyberspace: Interpersonal communication in a computer- mediated environment http://maltepe.academia.edu/SelvaEesoz/Papers/563123/Cultures_in_cyberspace_inte rpersonal_communication_in_a_computer-mediated_Envrionment • Würtz, E. (2005). A cross-cultural analysis of websites from high-context cultures and low-context cultures. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 13.http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/wuertz.html • Usunier, J. C. (2000). International marketing. A Cultural Approach, New York. • Marcus, A., & Gould, E. W. (2000). Crosscurrents: cultural dimensions and global Web user-interface design. interactions, 7(4), 32-46.
- 45. Thank You E.A. Draffan ECSAccessibility Team http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk http://localisation.atbar.org/ Vanissa Wanick PhD candidate and UX/UI designer Games Design Hub http://blog.soton.ac.uk/gamesdesignhub/
Editor's Notes
- #4 Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Perilli inToronto, Canada. Four identical sculptures are located inBuffalo City, South Africa; Changchun, China; Sarajevo,Bosnia and Sydney, Australia
- #5 The Need – Discover – gain understanding –translate –Requirements Start to create – based on the concepts – develop and offer solutions.
- #6 Understand the context is also important User experience will give to the designer an overview about the context of the user, why the user interacts with something in a different way. In this scenario, cultural values will also influence this interaction Why people are interacting with a website? In which context?
- #8 http://sapientprivatewealthmanagement.com/media/2010/10/Demographics-Around-the-World.pdf
- #9 individualistic – relationships with individuals developed during the communication, tends to be direct but collectivist cultures prefer to use their known types of communication preserving the boundaries already defined by the group – high context and indirect speech (Gudykunst and Matsumoto 1996)
- #17 Added one example borrowed from Marcus and Gould to illustrate the relationship between cultural dimensions and design Access to information: highly (high PD) vs. less-highly (low PD) structured. Focus on expertise, authority, experts, certifications, official stamps, or logos: strong vs. weak. The Malaysian website features strong axial symmetry, focus on the official seal of the university, photographs of faculty or administration leaders conferring degrees The Dutch websites feature an emphasis on students, a stronger use of asymmetric layout, and photos of both gen- ders in illustrations.
- #21 High UA: Simplicity, clear metaphors, limited choices / Mental models, reducing errors, redundant cues Low UA: Complexity, maximal content choices / less control of navigation, coding of colour, typography, maximize information
- #22 A stable society requires unequal relations.• The family is the prototype of all social organiza- tions; consequent- ly, older people (parents) have more authority than younger peo- ple (and men more than women).• Virtuous behavior
- #23 Coffee and flapjacks
- #27 If the mechanics are changed, then it will be a different game for each player The storyline follows the mechanics and interface design So, this should be in the interface level – characters, WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer), colours, scenarios? What is the limit between the new game and the adaptive game? It will depend on the brand category, service – this will shape the message that should be consistent to user research (discovery + strategy) Storyline + WIMP will imply translation Players usually focus more on the character while playing a mobile game, for example
- #28 Example of application for Arabic cultures – system utilising badges and other visual elements related to the Arabic culture Colours: white, blue, green – green is a holy colour, position of the logos, calendar, spacing, high UA – hierarchy, etc
- #31 Infographic for references – see the differences Just added this to show how the colours are different
- #43 We could give the students some sticky-notes or papers with their roles in the international communication world As a game, each one will play one role. A team should have at least 5 members. Give a scenario: You all work for…. You have this challenge What does each member expect? What could you do to help to make this relationship better? How would you solve the problem of international communication? After it, a quick voting could happen and the team with the most interesting ideas could win something