Test Of An Intercultural Framework Of Measuring Web Design Differences

With the development of e-commerce, people around the world have access to most of the websites and thus make the website an indispensable channel of communication. Many organizations, including governments, use the web as a tool to promote their public image and attract tourists and investors. Therefore, great efforts are made by organizations to give the expected web users a positive experience in visiting their websites. Academically, scholars gradually realize that web users from various cultural backgrounds are influenced by their cultures and thus have different web-using habits, such as color preferences. It is very important to meet the cultural needs of the expected web users in order to be successful in international e-business or in building up public relations and publicity of all levels of governments. However, many webs are designed poorly from a cross-cultural perspective. As a result, cross-cultural research of web design differences has emerged in the last few decades. The author also conducts such a study.At first, the author gives an explanation of culture and cultural dimensions and then reviews the development of cultural studies in history. In this part, Hofstede's five cultural dimensions are regarded as the foundation of cross-cultural analysis of the web designs. Secondly, the author introduces previous works which have conducted cross-cultural analysis of web designs. Callahan's cross-cultural framework in measuring website design differences is explained. Thirdly, the author modifies Callahan's framework and proposes her framework of evaluating web design differences. Fourthly, the author evaluates web design differences of 18 American municipal government websites and 18 Chinese municipal government websites with the methodology of visual content analysis in order to test the modified Callahan's framework. The research findings are discussed in this part too. Though most of the hypotheses are approved by the test, three of them are not. The author gives her understanding of the reasons why these hypotheses are rejected. Fifthly, the author uses the tested framework to make a qualitative comparison between San Francisco and Qingpu District government websites. Finally, suggestions are given to internationalize the English version of Qingpu District government's web. They are as follows. As to power distance, Chinese culture has a high power distance index while American culture does not. So, web designers may make pictures of authorities less formal since American people do not treat government officials as respectfully as Chinese people do. As to individualism/collectivism, American culture is an individualistic culture while Chinese culture is a collectivistic one. So, web designers may put more emphasis on individual achievements and make the figures on the pictures larger in order to shorten the distance between the persons in the picture and the web users. When necessary, web designers can even put several close-ups of successful people on web pages. As to uncertainty avoidance, Chinese culture has a comparatively lower uncertainty avoidance index than American culture. As a result, the Chinese way of communication is more indirect and ambiguous than the American way. So, web designers may use less animation effects to attract the expected web users'attention, since too many animation effects give the expected American web audience a sense of uncertainty. Web designers may also make web pages shorter, use fewer pop-up windows and use more high-modality pictures. As to masculinity/femininity, American culture has a comparatively higher masculinity culture than China. However, the difference is not significant. As a result, web users may still use equal number of pictures of both genders. As to the short-/long-term orientation, American culture is more short-term oriented while the Chinese one is more long-term oriented. American users seem to have less patience than Chinese users. So web designers may put more headlines and less detailed information on the homepage of the American websites.To a degree, the suggestions and the framework will be helpful for Qingpu District governments to internationalize their English websites and make them better understood by people of different cultural backgrounds.