Abstract
This chapter introduces how Semiotic Engineering, a semiotic theory of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), connects to culture, providing the appropriate context in which we wish this book will be read. Firstly, we express our assumptions about design activities in general and about HCI design in particular. Then we briefly present our theory and some conceptual support for thinking about culture. The next step is to establish the focus of our research, the design of cross-cultural systems, which we define as systems that intentionally expose foreign material to their users. These kinds of systems are meant to engage users on journeys through cultures and designing them is a very complex task. In this book, we present Cultural Viewpoint Metaphors, a Semiotic Engineering conceptual tool to help HCI designers organize culture-sensitive interaction discourse about the journeys that users may take.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Data from Internet World Stats in December 2011 (http://www.internetworldstats.com).
- 2.
The translations of Portuguese text signaled by call outs are: (1) Welcome to Site! Localized experience. Need help?; (2) Keep with the Brazilian Site; and (3) Start.
- 3.
Throughout the entire book we will often use “designer” and “user” in singular form. However, unless explicitly indicated otherwise, this is only a rhetorical choice to facilitate reading. These terms actually stand for collective objects, a team of designers and a community of users, respectively.
- 4.
- 5.
References
Andersen, P. B. (1997). A theory of computer semiotics: Semiotic approaches to construction and assessment of computer systems (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ardissono, L., Kobsa, A., & Maybury, M. T. (2010). Personalized digital television: Targeting programs to individual viewers. Heidelberg: Springer.
Barber, W., & Badre, A. (1998). Culturability: The merging of culture and usability. In Proceedings of the 4th conference on human factors & the web. Basking Ridge: Online publication. Available at http://www.research.att.com/conf/hfweb/proceedings/barber/index.htm. Last visited in Jan 2012.
Bourgues-Waldegg, P., & Scrivener, S. A. R. (1998). Meaning, the central issue in cross-cultural HCI design. Interacting with Computers, 9(3), 287–309.
Curzon, P., Wilson, J., & Whitney, G. (2005). Successful strategies of older people for finding information. Interacting with Computers, 17(6), 660–671.
Danesi, M., & Perron, P. (1999). Analyzing cultures: An introduction and handbook. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
de Souza, C. S. (1993). The semiotic engineering of user interface languages. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 39(5), 753–773.
de Souza, C. S. (2005). The semiotic engineering of human-computer interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
de Souza, C. S., & Leitão, C. F. (2009). Semiotic engineering methods for scientific research in HCI. San Francisco: Morgan and Claypool Publishers.
Del Gado, E., & Nielsen, J. (1996). International user interfaces. New York: Wiley.
Dourish, P. (2001). Where the action is: The foundations of embodied interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Duncker, E. (2002). Cross-cultural usability of the library metaphor. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on digital libraries (pp. 223–230). Portland/New York: ACM Press.
Fernandes, T. (1995). Global interface design: A guide to designing international user interfaces. San Diego: Academic Press Professional.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. New York: Anchor Books.
Hall, E. T. (1966). The hidden dimension. New York: Doubleday.
Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Doubleday.
Hall, E. T., & Hall, M. R. (1990). Understanding cultural differences. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press.
Hisham, S., & Edwards, A. D. (2007). Incorporating culture in user-interface: A case study of older adults in Malaysia. In Proceedings of the eighteenth conference on hypertext and hypermedia (pp. 145–146). New York: ACM.
Hofstede, G. H. (1984). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. London: Sage Publications.
Irani, L. C., & Dourish, P. (2009, February). Postcolonial interculturality. In Proceedings of the 2009 international workshop on Intercultural collaboration (IWIC ‘09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 249–252.
Latour, B. (2009). A cautious Prometheus? A few steps toward a philosophy of design (with special attention to Peter Sloterdijk). In Networks of design: Proceedings of the 2008 annual international conference of the design history society (pp. 2–10). Falmouth/Boca Raton: University College Falmouth/Universal Publishers.
Marcus, A. (2002). Global and intercultural user-interface design. In J. Jacko & A. Sears (Eds.), The human-computer interaction handbook (pp. 441–463). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Nadin, M. (1988). Interface design and evaluation – Semiotic implications. In H. R. Hartson & D. Hix (Eds.), Advances in human-computer interaction 2 (pp. 45–100). Norwood: Ablex.
Nielsen, J. (1990). Designing user interfaces for international use. New York: Elsevier.
Nielsen, J. (1990). Usability testing of international interfaces. In J. Nielsen (Ed.), Designing user interfaces for international use. New York: Elsevier.
Norman, D. A. (1986). Cognitive engineering. In D. A. Norman & S. W. Draper (Eds.), User centered systems design (pp. 31–62). Hillsdale: Laurence Erlbaum.
Russo, P., & Boor, S. (1993). How fluent is your interface?: designing for international users. In Proceedings of the INTERACT ’93 and CHI ’93 conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘93). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 342–347.
Sakala, L. (2009). Participatory design in a cross-cultural design context. Master thesis, University of Joensuu. Retrieved March, 2011 in: ftp://www.cs.joensuu.fi/pub/Theses/2009_MSc_Sakala_Lomanzi.pdf.
Salgado, L. C. C., de Souza, C. S., & Leitão, C. F. (2011). Using metaphors to explore cultural perspectives in cross-cultural design. In P. Rau (Ed.), Internationalization, design and global development (Vol. 6775, pp. 94–103). Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.
Shen, S., Wooley, M., & Prior, S. (2006). Towards culture-centred design. Interacting with Computers, 18(4), 820–852.
Spool, J. M., & Schaffer, E. M. (2005, April 2–7). The great debate: Can usability scale up?. In CHI ’05 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1174–1175). Portland/New York: ACM.
Svanaes, D. (2012). Philosophy of interaction. In S. Mads & R. F. Dam (Eds.), Encyclopedia of HCI. Interaction-Design.org. Online at http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/philosophy_of_interaction.html. Last visited on Feb 2012.
UNESCO. (2011). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/. Last visited on Dec 2011.
Vatrapu, R. (2008). Cultural considerations in computer supported collaborative learning. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 3(2), 159–201.
Vatrapu, R., & Suthers, D. (2010). Intra- and inter-cultural usability in computer supported collaboration. Journal of Usability Studies, 5(4), 172–197.
Winograd, T., & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
de Castro Salgado, L.C., Leitão, C.F., de Souza, C.S. (2013). Introduction. In: A Journey Through Cultures. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4114-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4114-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4113-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4114-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)