IMPACT OF CULTURAL DIVERSITIES ON WEBSITE DESIGN

Mehak Sambyal

Rayat&Bahra institute of engg. & Biotechnology, Mohali

Jatinder Manhas

University of Jammu, Jammu

mehaksambyal123@gmail.com, manhas.jatinder@gmail.com

Abstract

The web is one of the most revolutionary and

global technique influencing every aspect of the

people throughout the world including culture. The

web has become the most intelligible technique

throughout the world which enables distribution of

services through its websites. The professionals

and designers suggest that a well designed user

interface is more influential and improves the

performance of the website. In this paper, the

authors have examined and found out the cultural

influences on website design. Culture can be

defined as a group of people having certain things

in common which could affect the website design.

The authors in this paper took different charity

websites from North and South India and examined

them by comparing the differences in the design

with respect to culture. Authors examined these

websites for 5 different parameters i.e. Information,

Visual design, page layout, user input and

multimedia. Findings suggest that north Indian

and south Indian websites differ in terms of color,

their logos and the style of menu they are using

which are influenced by their local cultures. The

authors found that difference in culture between the

two different regions plays a vital role in website

design.

Keywords: Culture, Website Design, Website

parameters, Visual Design.

1. Introduction

There has been a significant increase in the internet

users in India. In year 1998, the internet users in

India were 14, 00,000 i.e.0.1% of the total

population [1]. In year 2012, the internet users

were 13, 70, 00,000 i.e.11.4% of the total

population [1]. With

these facts and figures, India has now become the

world’s third largest Internet user after U.S and

China [2]. Since the national language as well as

local language in India is not English but still the

reports suggest that there is still a large section of

people using Internet. The web is connecting

different regions of the country and there is a large

section of non-English speaking people using

Internet. In this paper, the authors have examined

the differences in the design of websites from two

different regions of Indian society. People from

different cultures have different beliefs, values and

the way they interact among themselves, these

differences may be magnified in intercultural

interactions[3].We have taken into account 11

different charity websites each from North India

and South India which makes total of 22 websites.

The aim of our study is to investigate the cultural

differences in these websites. For this, we

conducted an empirical study so as to establish our

findings.

2. Cultural Differences:

Culture gives people a sense of who they are, of

belonging, of how they should behave, and of what

they should be doing [4]. Anthropologist suggest

that people from different cultures have different

ways of thinking, feeling, reacting and constitute

the different achievements of humans. The basic

essentials of culture consist of traditional ideas and

values [5]. This suggests that people from different

cultures exhibit different behaviors.

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3. Cultural implications on website

design

Barber and badre took into account cultural

markers from different cultures influenced by

different genre [6]. H.Sun tried to found out the

difference in information design, navigation design

and visual design [7]. Badre and Las tried to show

whether the style of one genre can be used to

design a website of another genre [8]. Yu and Ro

confined his study on the effect of three different

web menu designs (simple selection menu, a global

and local navigation menu or pull-down menu) on

user’s information-seeking performance and

attitudes [9]. Marcus and Gould introduced the

concept of effect of culture on user interface

designs [10]. Dainne Cyr and Joe Ilsever found out

the behavior for local and foreign websites

[11].Some researchers have tried to find out the

differences in the online behavior of the people

[12].Luna, Peracchio and Juan have developed a

conceptual model to show the impact of culture on

website [13].Simon found out the impact of culture

and gender on the website design [14].

4. Empirical study comparing south

Indian and north Indian charity

websites

In this study we examined a sample of 11 charity

websites each from north and south regions of

India which makes a sum total of 22 websites. Two

different parts of same nation with different

cultures were taken into account for study. Two

different parts were chosen so as to determine their

cultural differences (or diversities). We focused our

study on charity websites as they are made by local

people and can easily depict the local ideas and

culture of that particular region. We confined our

study to the homepage of charity websites as it

contains maximum number of contents which

could specify the differences.

5. Methodology:

Each charity website taken from the sample was

examined for five different parameters i.e.

Information, Visual design, page layout, user input

and multimedia. These design categories include:

1. Information include: Job openings, volunteer

demand, what the donation is used for, links to

other sites.

2. Visual Design include: Color for background,

frame, hyperlink, logo and text.

3. Page layout include: Type of menu such as

static, drop down on click, drop down when mouse

over, position of main menu on grid, position of

donation on grid, navigation of main menu such as

horizontally focused, vertically focused.

4. User input include: Message board, online

community, sign in access, email and location

address.

5. Multimedia include: Sound, Animation and

Streaming video.

6. Results:

The results for each design feature are given below:

6.1. Information:

TABLE 2: Information frequency by category

Variable

Actual frequency

North Indian South

Indian

Job openings 3 1

Volunteer demand 2 1

Last update indicator 0 0

What the donation is

used for 3 6

Text only version 0 0

Links to other sites 5 6

By analyzing the statistics from the above table we

found that the information provided in both north

and south Indian websites is almost same i.e.

information about organizations and their press

releases. The other information parameters like job

openings, volunteer demand and text only version

etc links to other sites are also comparatively

similar. The only major difference that lies among

the websites of two regions for the information

parameter is the results for donation usage which

suggests that south Indian sites showed more

frequency than north Indian sites.

6.2. Visual Design:

Colors: By analyzing the statistics from the given below table we have found out that white is the

predominant color for both north Indian and south

Indian websites. With regard to total color usage,

the dominant colors for north Indian websites are

white(29%),blue(14%).The dominant colors for

south Indian websites are white(29%),grey(25%).

Mehak Sambyal et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (2),334-337

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335

ISSN:2229-6093

Table 3: The number of web sites on which the

color appears (only first page of the website was

considered)

Images:

Photos and symbols were examined for the sample

websites taken for the purpose. Some of the north

and south Indian websites are using their local

landmark as their logo. The photos of people in all

websites are both smiling as well as sad. The

Images clearly reflect the differences in the cultural

behavior of the two parts of the same nation.

6.3. Page layout

After analyzing the table 4 it was found that 7 out

of 11 north Indian websites are using drop down

when mouse over menus and 6 out of 11 south

Indian websites are using static menus. While none

of the north Indian as well as south Indian websites

is using drop down on click menu. For the position

of main menu, top center position is dominant for

both north Indian and south Indian websites. For

the position of donation different locations are

being used for different sites and not much fixed

pattern seen.

TABLE 4: Page layout characteristics

Variable

Nation

SK UK

Type of menu

Static 5 14

Drop down on click 1 5

Drop down when mouse over 13

The position of main menu on the grid

A B C E A: 0 A: 5

D B: 6 B: 1

C: 0 C: 1

D: 1 D: 1

F

E: 4 E: 7

F: 8 F: 1

The position of donation on the grid

A B C A: 0 A: 2

B: 8 B: 1

G H

C: 3 C: 1

I

J

G: 0 G: 2

H: 1 H: 2

I: 1 I: 0

J: 0 J: 1

Navigation Horizontally 18 12

of main

Focused

menu Vertically focused 2 8

6.4. User input

TABLE 5: User Input

Function North

Indian

South

Indian

Message board 2 3

Online community 5 6

Personalization

(Sign in) 3 1

Online poll 0 0

Email/Location

address 10 11

By observing the above table, we found out that

there is not a much difference in north Indian and

south Indian websites for the parameters of user

input. Both the websites are giving approximately

same input opportunities to their users.

Mehak Sambyal et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (2),334-337

IJCTA | March-April 2014 Available online@www.ijcta.com

336

ISSN:2229-6093

6.5. Multimedia

TABLE 6: Multimedia

Function North

Indian

South

Indian

Sound 1 0

Animation 9 8

Streaming video 6 3

By analyzing the above table for the three

parameters i.e. sound, animation and streaming

videos, the statistics obtained suggests that none of

the south Indian website is using sound and only

one website from north India is using sound. The

use of streaming video is more predominant in

north Indian websites (55%approx.) than south

Indian websites (27%approx.). The use of

animation is predominant for both north Indian and

south Indian websites.

7. Discussion

Both north Indian and south Indian websites

provide equal information about the organization

and other related information. The north Indian

websites publish details about usage of donation

much more frequently than south Indian websites.

As far as color is concerned there exist some

differences in the types of colors used. If we look

into the findings of images we could see that both

north Indian and south Indian websites are using

their local landmarks that are considered as a

difference. Types of Menus employed in the

websites differ for both north Indian and south

Indian websites. Streaming videos are more

frequently used in north Indian websites than south

Indian websites.

8. Conclusion

Our research confines its study to find out the

difference in north Indian and south Indian

websites due to the cultural differences in these

places. For this we have performed an empirical

study on north Indian and south Indian websites.

Our findings suggest that there exists a difference

in website design influenced due to difference in

culture.

9. References:

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Miniwatts Marketing Group;

http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/in.htm

[2] http://www.thehindu.com/sciTech/technology/internet/

india-is-now-worlds-third-largest-internet-user-after-us-

china/article5053115.ece

[3] E.T. Hall, M.R.Hall. Understanding Cultural Differences:

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Intercultural Press;1990

[4] Philip Robert Harris, Robert T. Moran, Sarah Virgilia

Moran. Managing Cultural Differences: Global Leadership

Strategies for the 21st Century

[5] Geert H. Hofstede. Culture's Consequences: Comparing

Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across

Nations.

[6] W.Barber, A.Badre.Culturability: The merging of Culture

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Web 1998Conference.NJ;1998.

[7] H.Sun. Building a Culturally Competent Web Site: An

Exploratory Study of Cultural Markers in Multilingual Web

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[8] A. Badre, S. Laskowski. The Cultural Context of Web

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[10] A. Marcus, E. W. Gould. Cultural Dimensions and Global

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Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Human Factors and the

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[11] C. B. Dianne Cyr, Joe ilsever. Innovation, management &

strategy: Design and e-loyalty

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[12] P. Y. K. Chau, M. Cole, A. P. Massey, M. Montoya-Weiss,

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[13] D. Luna, L. A. Peracchio, M. D. de Juan. Cross-Cultural

and Cognitive Aspects of Web Site Navigation. Journal of the

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[14] S. J. Simon. The Impact of Culture and Gender on Web

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Information Systems 2001; 32(1): 18-37.

Mehak Sambyal et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (2),334-337

IJCTA | March-April 2014 Available online@www.ijcta.com

337

ISSN:2229-6093