Shafie Mehad

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.

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 Design of Information Architecture for B2C E-Commerce Websites

Culture is widely treated as an essential factor for the success of e-commerce, yet the concept itself is still clouded in bewilderment. Furthermore, there has been little research on usage behavior in the context of developing countries; e.g., Islamic countries. By using Islamic culture as the case study, this study highlights the website information architecture practical design indication and reports the partial analysis of the investigation on how culture design of information architecture (IA) for B2C e-commerce website will has a positive affect to the user performance tasks (browsing, searching and purchasing books activities). Analyses of one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance (one-way MANOVA) and paired-samples t-test were performed. The result showed that the task time performance of the Middle East and the Malaysian users are different and faster when using the culture centred e-commerce website. Thus, provides empirical evidence on the positive influence of culturally design website to performance.

Seeing is not believing but interpreting, inducing trust through institutional symbolism: a conceptual framework for online trust building in a web mediated information environment

Trust has become an essential prerequisite for customer relationship building. Implementing institutional mechanisms seems to be an obvious outcome in inducing trust, rather than the result of independently motivated decisions of the users interpretation on the institutional design features to be trustworthy. Proponents of this idea argued by understanding the concept of a sign and its related properties, it is possible to improve the analysis and design of interface design elements within web environment to induce trust. Drawn from established theoretical work on institutional based trust and semiotic, the concept of Institutional Symbolism and its four underlying dimensions are proposed to facilitate thinking and perception as to how trust can be built through signs comprehension. Conceptualized in the context of web mediated information environment, the implications of these dimensions on web site design and future work is further discussed.

“Fact or Fiction?” Imposing Legitimacy for Trustworthy Information on the Web: A Qualitative Inquiry

The question on how to impose the sense of “legitimacy” in designing information artifact which can be rationalized and controlled as part of the overall interface design strategy and future IS construction for sensitive settings becomes our primary aim of this research. The research key focal point is to refine the notions of the human computer interface within the Web Mediated Information Environment (W-MIE) context through the evolution of novel ways in assisting its design deployment and evaluation from non technical perspectives of requirements by addressing the earliest (conceptual) state of development work concerning the role of “soft” trust dimensions, as signals for trustworthiness governing interaction on the web. Drawing the attention to the web based information for Islamic content sharing sites, the paper present and discussed empirical results of its qualitative study that explicate the role of “institutional symbolisms” representation to safeguard interaction on the web.