Usability Perceptions of Culturally Adapted Web Pages

Abstract

The internationalization of websites should lead to highly usable web pages with excellent user experience. As a result, the understanding and implementation of users’ preferences for functionality, look, feel, and aesthetics in website design has become a fundamental issue that needs to be adequately addressed. This research empirically demonstrates the interaction of user culture with user perceptions of perceived navigability, perceived aesthetics, and satisfaction, using a set of translated Australian and Chinese websites. The results show that by implementing culturally specific design elements it is possible to have a positive influence on these perceptions, but the relationships are more complex than originally hypothesized. This work highlights the importance of accommodating the different information presentation and interaction styles of culturally diverse users to improve their user experience when using websites.