[Sigia-l] Internationalization/Globalization/Localization help needed

[Livia Labate]

 >sites. Can anyone point me to UI resources that outline standards
 >specifically for international audiences? I'm currently looking to
 >Aaron Marcus and Emile Gould article titled: Cultural Dimensions and
 >Global Web User-Interface Design: What? So What? Now What?

I am currently doing research on Global IA and that's one of the topics 
I am looking into (sites for muti-cultural audiences). There are few 
resources on this topic and not enough substance in what is out there to 
consider 'standard' (standards you could trully construc heuristics upon).

Based on the assumption that the design of sites for multi-cultural 
audiences should be addressed on a per-locale basis [1], one of my 
research hypothesis is that heuristic-based evaluation of multi-cultural 
interfaces should incorporate specific culturally-linked attributes. 
These "culturally-linked attributes" are the tricky part and where I 
disagree with the Aaron Marcus report.

The article talks about Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions and attempts to 
apply that to the design of web interfaces focusing on multi-cultural 
audiences. However, I feel it fails to address the issue of how to 
accommodate the differences that set different groups apart. It is a 
great article if you're not familiar with Hofstede's work, but the 
concept of design approach under a segmented locale modeled after 
Cultural Dimensions doesn't sit with me well.

So far I have not found those "culturally-linked attributes" for 
evaluation in Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions (or anywhere else for that 
matter).

Though somewhat off-topic from the evaluation question, I also don't' 
think the Cultural Dimensions apply to the actual "design" of 
multi-cultural interfaces per se. Another hypothesis in my research is 
that the design process for Global IA should not differ from 
'traditional' IA. This does not mean though, that the research phase 
would have the same elements - and that's where I think there IS 
potential for Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions to be applied. I suspect 
that  Cultural Dimensions could be (are) very very helpful during the 
research that precedes *initial* design. I can see them being used for 
various purposes:  Gap Analysis (to help define what the locale really 
is),  User Profiles or Personas (which would *then* inform a 
locale-driven design) and others.

Peter Van Dijck, Jorge Arango and myself will be discussing this topic 
at the IA Summit :

- "The State of Global IA" during the IA Institute Leadership Seminar 
(March 3-4, 2005)
   http://iasummit.org/2005/preconferencedescrip.htm#leadership

- "Practical Global IA" (March 6, 2005 - 9:30) 
   http://iasummit.org/2005/conferencedescrip.htm#111

- Internationalization "Birds of a Feather" Session (March 5, 2005 - 4:00)
   http://iasummit.org/2005/conferencedescrip.htm#internationalization

Cheers,

Livia Labate

* an assumption that requires further explanation but I'll skip it this 
time (will follow up if needed)

* Here's the article for those who have not read it before:
   Cultural Dimensions and Global Web User-Interface Design: What? So 
What? Now What?
   http://www.amanda.com/resources/hfweb2000/AMA_CultDim.pdf