A proposal for a repertory-grid study of differences in Chinese , Danish , and Indian conceptions of usability : Cultural usability ?

This is an unrefined proposal for a study that could form part of the exploratory phase of the Cultural Usability project. The proposed study compares three cultures (Chinese, Danish, and Indian) and two stakeholder groups (users and developers) with respect to their conceptions of usability. Introduction The concept of usability has been debated for decades (e.g., Shackel, 1984; Hornbæk, 2006). Concomitantly, the diffusion, acceptance, and conception of technologies have been researched in, among others, the areas of diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 2003) and the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989). However, much of this work under-recognizes that conceptions of technologies and their usability may be culture dependent. Typically, culture has not been considered at all. Recently, the importance of culture in relation to usability work has been acknowledged (e.g., Barber & Badre, 1998; Honold, 2000; Markus, 2002; Markus & Gould, 2000), and a concept of cultural usability is emerging. The first aim of this study is to contribute to an elaboration of the cultural usability concept by investigating whether similarities and differences in people’s conceptions of usability correlate with their cultural background. Cultural background is, in this study, taken to mean people’s country of birth and residence. The second aim of this study is to compare and contrast users’ and developers’ conceptions of usability. This is seen as interesting in its own right (see, e.g., Holcomb & Tharp, 1991) but also as a means of investigating whether the more prominent differences in people’s conceptions of usability are between people from different cultures or between users and developers. The study is currently a proposal, and further progress is dependent on participation from other people on the Cultural Usability project. To make matters concrete, the rest of this proposal is an incomplete and preliminary draft of a methodology section. Method To investigate the cultural aspects of usability empirically, we interviewed users and developers with three different cultural backgrounds about their conceptions of the usability of selected technologies. The interviews were based on the repertory-grid technique, which originates from Kelly’s personal-construct theory (Kelly, 1955). Participants The participants were three groups of experienced software users and three groups of experienced software developers. Each group had eight participants. Groups were similar with respect to participants’ age, gender distribution, and level of education. Further, the participants in the user groups had comparable levels of experience using software and the participants in the developer groups had comparable levels of experience developing software. The groups differed, however, with respect to participants’ cultural background. (This section should be extended with a description of the three user groups (Chinese, Danish, and Indian) and the three developer groups. Also, the section should describe how participants were selected for the study. ) Stimulus material The stimulus material used in the repertory-grid interviews consisted of six images. Each image (see Figure 1) was colour printed on a separate sheet of paper and supplemented with a brief textual description. As an example, the upper, left image in Figure 1 was accompanied by the text “Google is a search engine for the