The impact of culture on user interface acceptance case study of selected Arabic websites

Dissertant

Hammudi, Sundus Abd al-Aziz

Thesis advisor

al-Shaykh, Asim A. R.

Comitee Members

Kanan, Ghassan Jaddu
al-Shalabi, Riyad
Abu al-Suud, Salih Mustafa

University

Arab Academy for Financial and Banking Sciences

Faculty

The Faculty of Information Systems and Technology

Department

Computer information systems

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Date

2008

English Abstract

Recently the number of internet users has increased, therefore a need for websites in different fields of knowledge (for example, business, entertainment education and others), and a need for websites which can accommodate different users' cultures and language has appeared.

Because of difficulties designers and developers faced in designing websites to suite the user cultures research in this domain was increased and gained more concern, this study covers the needs of Arabic users needs and the requirements for Arabic websites The objectives of this research are to study the reflection of culture on user interface design in Arabic websites and also to study the impact of culture and design on acceptance of user interface by Arabic users.

To achieve these objectives, Hofisted Culture Model investigated (several dimensions; power distance, individualism vs.

collectivism, masculinity vs.

femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long vs.

short-term orientation) through user interface components by Marcus (including metaphor, mental model, navigation, interaction and appearance).

In addition this study evaluated the impact and acceptance of both the cultural dimensions and designs of these pages on the Arabic user by using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which measures ease of use and usefulness, satisfaction of websites are also measured.

The survey carried out questionnaires and interviews to university students and employee in three Arab countries: The United Arab Emirate, Jordan and Egypt.

The survey questioned students because more than any other demographic group, students communicate by internet through educational and learning websites.

In addition they need information searching, innovation identifying and access to other websites types, like news and sports.

Interviews were made with different students to gain more explanations concerning the acceptance of the Arabic websites and get their opinions in order to solve any problem that may have faced them while dealing with these websites.

Select Arabic websites were analyzed by researcher using Marcus assumptions; the results show that Arabic websites design is successful.

This also supports the results of the survey conducted on Arab students.

v From reviewing literature and practical research, the researcher found that cultural dimensions reflect in different percentages and vary among foreign websites according to culture.

The survey confirmed that cultural dimension is associates with user interface in Arabic websites, but it needs more highlighting to increase the attraction of these websites to Arabic users.

We conducted different guides and recommendations which could help Human Computer Interaction (HCI) among a variety of both local and foreign users.

Those people include researchers, designers and developers in universities, institutes, companies and industries wishing to reflect Arab culture on their websites.

Our proposed model will facilitate the design of different cultural website and make the cooperation between designers easier across cultures.

We hope the outcome from this research has better provide practitioners and consultants in the HCI domain to carry out more contributions and generate more ideas for crosscultural user interface design.

Main Subjects

Information Technology and Computer Science

No. of Pages

154

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-306053