Measuring the Effects of Cultures on Website Use

Abstract

Under the context of globalization, it is essential to understand the cultural requirements and preferences of a target culture if a company wants to develop a website which can appropriately map that target culture. Based on the author’s previous study, the culturally preferred characteristics between Taiwan and the UK have been found (Hsieh and Hong, 2013). The previous finding of the culturally preferred characteristics between Taiwan and the UK formulates the further questions: “Since different cultural preferences for web design attributes exist, how can the culturally preferred design characteristics be applied to increase usability?” Therefore, the aim of this paper is to measure the effect of cultural preferences on the use of web design. The methodologies are introduced as following. First, two cultures are selected. Taiwan and the UK are selected. Second, experimental webs are constructed. The cultural preferences for websites of Taiwan and the UK would be embedded into websites prototype, which have the same content. Finally, applying SPSS to analyze the data of the usability testing. Based on the results of the analyasis and discussion, it reveals that culturally preferred design elements of the target-culture can improve the effectiveness of web communication for the users from the target-culture. This research can help web developers and designers to develop a web interface design that is culturally appropriate.