Nor Laila Md Noor

Incorporating the cultural dimensions into the theoretical framework of website information architecture

Information Architecture (IA) has emerged as a discipline that is concerned with the development of systematic approaches to the presentation and organization of online information. The IA discipline has commanded significant attention from professional practitioners but lacks in the theoretical perspective. In our effort to formalize the knowledge of the discipline, we report on the extension of our initial work of formalizing the architectural framework for understanding website IA. Since the web is not a culturally neutral medium, we sought to delineate the cultural dimensions within our formed framework of website IA with the incorporation of the cultural dimensions of Hofstede and Hofstedes (2005), Halls (1966), Hall and Halls (1990) and Trompenaars (1997). This attempt contributes towards the progress of putting a sense of cultural localization to the IA augmentation for local and international website design. In addition, to avoid theoretical aloofness and arbitrariness, practical design presumptions are also reflected.

A survey on user involvement in software Development Life Cycle from practitioner's perspectives

User involvement is an important issue that is currently discuss in software development industry. This is due to the incidence of user frustration when using a software product. The literature on software development reflected that the involvement of users in all stages of user involvement in software development lifecycle (SDLC) process can contributes to the software usability. Although practitioners have agreed that user involvement in software development is very important but the extent of user involvement in practice is still unknown. This paper reports on a study that was conducted to investigate user involvement in the SDLC process. The objective of the study is to investigate the degree of user involvement in SDLC process. In the study the Human Centered System Development Life Cycle (HCSDLC) model was used as the research model. In the study a survey was carried out and 32 software practitioners has responded to the survey. The result of this survey indicated that user involvement is mainly concentrated in the functional requirement gathering rather than non-functional requirement gathering. This paper then concludes that practitioners do not involve users in the non-functional requirements gathering which then implies that users are not involved in determining the kind of software used during the SDLC process.

The design of aesthetic interaction: towards a graceful interaction framework

The growth of techno-dependency and the proliferation of creative engagement have spurred research towards the creation of human values through digital engagement. Against the backdrop of technology evolution, research on human computer interaction (HCI) has begun to explore dimensions of human value derived from the aesthetics of interaction. This desire for beauty aligns to the Maslows hierarchy of human needs which acknowledge that humans needs aesthetic satisfaction to realize self-actualization. However in the past, the main focus of aesthetics in HCI research was on visual beauty of the user interface. To further explore new forms and perspective of aesthetics of interaction, we present the notion of graceful interaction. In this paper, we present the theoretical understanding derived from the multidisciplinary areas of human basic movement, aesthetics and interaction design into a graceful interaction phenomenon of interactive interface as an attempt to build the foundations for the graceful interaction framework. We also argue that the aesthetics of human movement can be applied to the online environment and illustrates how the movement paradigm and can be aligned and mapped into user experience interaction design. Based on these theoretical understandings, several theoretical propositions are formed to describe the aesthetics dimensions of graceful interaction.

ExpertKanseiWeb: A Tool to Design Kansei Website

In this paper we describe our research work involved in the development of a design tool for developing Kansei website. The design tool to facilitate Kansei web design is named, ExpertKanseiWeb and was developed based on results obtained from the application of the Kansei Engineering method to extract website visitors’ Kansei responses. From the Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis performed, a guideline composed from the website design elements and the implied Kansei was established. This guideline becomes the basis for the systems structure of the design tool. ExpertKanseiWeb system consists of a Client Interface (CI), system controller and Kansei Web Database System (KWDS). Client can benefit from the tools as it offers easy knowledge interpretation of the guideline and presents examples to the design of Kansei website.

Cultural Prescription vs. User Perception of Information Architecture for Culture Centred Website: A Case Study on Muslim Online User

This paper reports the overview for the understanding of Islamic culture from the perspective of Islamic experts and Muslims based on the commonalities found in Hofstedes cultural dimension and Islamic worldview values. The understanding was gained from Wan Abdul Rahim et al. (2008) and a replication survey of VSM `94. We used this understanding as the benchmark for conducting experimental study to examine the time performance of Muslim online user in searching and purchasing books from two separate websites. The two websites were imposed with Islamic dimensions based from; (1) religious interpretation and; (2) user perception. The results of the paired-samples t-test showed that website imposed with Hofstedes dimension from religious interpretation is the better ones. Thus provide the indication that website that displays the cultural dimensions based on the religion prescriptions, will has a positive affect on the performance level regardless the current changes of the state of culture.

Muslim User Interface Evaluation Framework (Muslim-UI) for Islamic genre website: A quantitative approach

There is a strong emphasis towards preserving the unique cultural characteristics of Muslim communities. Rather than to follow what the online technology norms and limitations dictate the way Muslims behave and conduct their activities online, the requirements of our distinctive features should be defined towards a betterment of Islamic cultural understanding to web developers and technology creators, who mainly come from western countries. This study reports an initial investigation on the presence of Islamic identity, traits and usability in Islamic websites by using a Muslim User Interface Evaluation Framework (Muslim-UI) adapted from Islamic genre website Checklist established by Wan Abdul Rahim, Shafie and Nor Laila (2006). Samples of 100 websites were identified and selected by using convenient sampling from Islamic portal at http://www.2muslims.com. The evaluation process was done by using personal observation and the adapted checklist as the research instrument. The study revealed several issues concerning the characteristics of Muslim User Interface (Muslim - UI) for Islamic Genre Website. We end our study with a few recommendations for further improvement of the Muslim User Interface for Islamic Genre Website.

The Information Architecture of E-Commerce: An Experimental Study on User Performance and Preference

Too often, designers of e-commerce web sites use models, concepts, guidelines, and designs that focus on the artifacts while ignoring the context in which the artifacts will be used. Furthermore, the link between culture and usability in web site IA phenomenon is still considered as uncharted area, as it lacks much theoretical consideration. In an effort toward addressing the aforementioned issues, our study provides a theoretical and empirical link between cultural and usability through the application of ‘Venustas’ (Delight) drawn from the architectural field and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. We use Islamic culture as the case study and report on the experiment to investigate the effect of the IA designs based on the cultural dimensions on e-commerce web sites. The result provides partial empirical support to the theorized link between culture and usability based on the usability measurement on user performance and preference. In addition, practical web site IA cultural design prescriptions are also provided.

Culture influences to website information architecture: An empirical investigation

This study explores the relationship between culture and website information architecture (IA) that is under-represented in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature. Our study drew from the works of Wan Abdul Rahim et al. (2006, 2007, 2008), who provided the IA framework from architectural perspectives and later incorporated Islamic cultural dimensions into the context of website IA. In this study, we enrich their framework by conducting empirical investigation to test the hypotheses linkage between culture and website IA. The research method involves using Islamic culture as the case study and web-based survey on 427 Muslims from Islamic countries. The result of the ordinal regression analysis suggests culture does influence website IA. This result contributes to the growing body of IA literature and has both substantive and methodological implications for future research.

Expressive Information Visualization Taxonomy for Decision Support Environment

This paper proposes expressive information visualization (IV) taxonomy to support cognitive and perceptual needs for decision support environment. Four key dimensions have been identified, namely representation, organization, interaction and content. The effects of these expressive dimensions on user satisfaction were examined. Results suggest that these dimensions are important and affect their satisfaction. Further analysis was conducted and results indicate that there are significant differences across IV techniques and decision style. This suggests and provides empirical evidence that the proposed expressive IV taxonomy is important to consider in the design and evaluation of IV in particular and user interface in general.

A relationship model of playful interaction, interaction design, kansei engineering and mobile usability in mobile learning

Mobile learning is a new technology embraced in the educational environment. In general, mobile learning can be described as teaching and learning activities by using mobile technologies. Designing interactivity with mobile learning is important for learners and educators. The requirements and different perspective towards mobile learning need to be explored. The demographic profiling of the user may also affect the usage and usability of mobile learning. Designers may need to identify the elements and relevant methodologies when designing interactivity of mobile learning. This main objective of this paper is to conceptualize the relationship model of (i) playful interaction, (ii) interaction design, (iii) kansei engineering and (iv) mobile usability in mobile learning. The model from this study may provide the motivation and prescription to designers in designing mobile application for teaching and learning.