The Influence of Culture in Website Design and Users’ Perceptions: Three Systematic Reviews (2016)

Interesting tidbits

Singh et al’s 2003 framework has been verified across cultures.

America and China are essentially opposites across cultural metrics for websites.

The only longitudinal study in the review was conducted by Robbins and Stylianou [2009]. The authors compared the exposure of cultural values in ninety company websites from twenty-two countries in 1998 with similar companies in 2008. This represents the only study in the review able to indicate the direction of possible cultural changes. The study points to a slight movement towards the homogenization of some values across cultures. Results on individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-short term orientation showed a reduction of their significance levels, possibly indicating a movement towards homogenization [Robbins & Stylianou 2009]. However, the differences amongst countries regarding power distance and uncertainty avoidance became even more significant after ten years, suggesting an enhancement of cultural differences in these dimensions.

The term ‘cultural markers’ was created to denote countries’ web design preferences. It refers to interface elements that are most used in some cultures and less in others, such as colors, graphics, layout, multimedia and others [Badre 2000; Barber & Badre 1998; Juric et al. 2003]. Cultural markers are therefore an online cultural trait, creating a country-specific website design. Barber and Badre [1998] developed the term “culturability” to refer to the merging of culture and usability. The term suggests that individuals are expected to prefer, and find it easier to navigate on, websites that have a design that is perceived as familiar to their cultural group [Badre 2000; Barber & Badre 1998; Sun 2001]. [Categories of evaluation: colors, content-related, graphics, language, layout, multimedia, navigation and symbols.]

The main cultural dimensions related to cultural markers were uncertainty avoidance and high-low context.

Key takeaways

• Intracultural design naturally garners results reflective of that culture’s values. The challenge comes more from (a) localization, and (b)
• Old media aesthetics have direct translatability to new media.
• Opportunities extend beyond websites, into kiosk interfaces, mobile apps, and video games.
• “High cultural congruity tends to influence users’ perceptions positively, allowing a greater evaluation of multiple aspects of the site, such as the attitude toward the site, navigability, online trust and the overall presentation of information.”
• Experimental sites might help to test levels of cultural adaptation.

Potential Research Directions

• Work has been done on practical websites, namely banks and other corporations. What about sites that “trigger a more hedonic motivation from users towards websites?”
• What are “the underlying principles that predispose a culture to choose certain specific design elements more frequently than others?”
• How might signifiers be effectively made cross-cultural without generification?
• Are the suggested evaluative frameworks effective? Would the GLOBE cultural taxonomy be an appropriate evaluative tool?