World Usability Day 2009

User Experience &Intercultural Communication

Wiebke Müller, Junior Project Manager M.A. International Information ManagementImage: UPA International Conference „Embracing Cultural Diversity“ usabilityprofessionals.org

On a monday evening while you‘re surfing on the internet, you come across this picture: „There is a visibly old car on a large rainy place. It is dark and the car lights are switched on.“

Which associations do you have when imagining this situation? None? This is not a problem, neither do we.

Now please have a look at the next page.

Exercise 1

Monday, Nov 09, 200920 years after the fall of

the wall in Germany

Do you know in which country the following freemail service has around 38 million users according to their company website?

www.hanmail.net

No? This is not a problem, neither do we.

Exercise 2

www.hanmail.netNorth Korea - ChosŏnSouth Korea - Hanguk

Knowledge about your own culture or about foreign cultures helps us to process and to structure texts, illustrations and informations.

If you lack a particular piece of knowledge, it will be difficult, perhaps impossible to interpret perceived illustrations correctly.

Cultural knowledge and informations are omnipresent - naturally they‘re also on the web.

Cultural knowledge

Image: Intercultural Communication www.araiza.de

...behaviour patterns, ethical principles, traditions, norms and values which are passed on to others, practised and represented by members of a particular culture.

Intercultural communication ...a social interaction between people who are belonging to at least two different cultures.

Culture

Sources: Myron W. Lustig & Jolene Koester, EFQM / Ministry of the interior NRW, Wikipedia

Image: Business Spotlight 6/2009 www.business-spotlight.de

We haven‘t managed any projects for a company from South Korea yet. Nevertheless we experience a lot of intercultural communication everyday.

Different organisational cultures.

In every organisation or company, there are different approaches to project organisation and communication.

Our customers

As information architects and multimedia service provider, we are developping intranet- and internet-solutions for various industries and markets.

User Experience.

Different

The term ,User Experience‘ is frequently associated to the end product. We would like to enlarge its signification to the user-oriented creation process of a design or an interaction concept.

Requirements

Idea

Concept

DesignProgrammingUsage - Experience

Ponton User Experience

Confidence

Course - time

Course - work package, instruments(Requirements idea prototype test new requirements idea design Construction)

Comprehension

Factors of success in a project

Inspired by: Leah Buley, Adaptive Path, USA

User Experience

Building up confidence

How would you illustrate confidence, competence and quality on your website?

* High-class illustration of products* High-class illustration of the company‘s leadership* Slogan, which accentuates product quality and benefits* Slogan, which accentuates company values and visions

Please have a look at the following two examples.

Exercise 3

"an honest and transparent company""bringing joyful changes to the world“

www.daum.net

The new iMac.“The fastest iPhone ever.““The best phone for business just got better.“

www.apple.com

User Experience

timeline and content of project

Course of project - every customer has his or her own imagination of participation.

“Go ahead - I trust you.“

“I would like to be actively involved in working processes.“

“I‘m happy if you take over the creative part.“

“I have already put together a few workflow diagrams.“

Course of projectSpecialised culturesand point of views

Goals

Commonproject context

Conditions

Application of various Instruments

Chances & risks

Information

Documentation

Coordination

Concepts

Interaction design Web-basedSoftware

and

Web 2.0 support important working processes

User Experience

„Comprehension“ Project communication

“You cannot not communicate.“(Paul Watzlawik)

Not , but nearly

80% of communication is nonverbal.

20%

Sources: Michael Argyle, Albert Mehrabian, Wikipedia

CMCComputer mediated communication

Channel reduction

“Since using Twitter I always know what my customer is thinking about.“

“Since we‘ve got the video conference system, the travel costs of our internationally operating company dropped by 50%.“

In a video conference you often can‘t clearly recognize nonverbal

and acoustic signals.

Nevertheless these are often the keys for the right comprehension

of a person, not only in intercultural conversations.

For a positive communication experience

Carefully choose and apply your communication instruments

Who – What – Why – How – Where - When

Contact

Ponton-Lab GmbH

Wiebke Müller

wiebke.mueller@ponton-lab.deGoseriede 430159 Hannover

Web: www.ponton-lab.deTel.: 0511 / 897009-0