Usability problem identification in culturally diverse settings by Associate Professor Torkil Clemmensen

There are indications that established methods for evaluating information

system usability that have been developed for use in, e.g. Europe or the USA,

fail to give reliable results in countries such as India, China or Malaysia. This paper

presents the theoretical background, related work and a definition of culture that

should be useful for studies of multiple-country usability testing. This includes a

discussion of cultural fit and the consequences of cultural (in)consistencies

between stakeholders in system development and use. As an illustrative example

of the kind of academic research that needs to be done, a pilot study is described.

The pilot study exemplifies themes to explore, who should be participants and

where should the study be done, how to find examples of multiple-country usability

testing, how to collect data and how to analyse that data and what kind of results

and discussion of results that may be expected. The conclusion summarises the

paper, discusses the limitations of the pilot study and gives detailed suggestions

to future research.

Reference:

“Usability problem identification in culturally diverse settings”. To appear in Information Systems Journal.

Online version first published: 12 September 2011