Login
Computer Science @ Rochester
Friday, February 15, 2013
10:45 AM
CSB 209
Katharina Reinecke
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Adapting User Interfaces to Cultural Differences in Perception and Preferences
Behavioral and neurological findings show that our cultural background influences the way we perceive and interpret information. This also impacts which user interface designs we find most appealing and trustworthy, and how we interact with user interfaces. In this talk, I will (1) outline how preferences differ between various cultures, (2) describe the implications of these differences for user interface design, and (3) discuss a possible solution to the conventional "one size fits all" approach in user interface design with an approach called 'cultural adaptivity'. The main idea behind it is to develop intelligent user interfaces, which can automatically adapt their look & feel to the user’s culture. Rather than only adapting to one country, cultural adaptivity is able to anticipate different influences on the user’s cultural background, such as previous countries of residence, or differing nationalities of the parents. I will present the results of several experiments conducted in different countries, which showed that cultural adaptivity increases both work efficiency and user satisfaction. The presentation concludes with future directions that support the acquisition and analysis of data comparing various cultures, and novel ideas for user interfaces that improve the experience for people of different cultural backgrounds.

Bio: Katharina Reinecke received her PhD in computer science from the University of Zurich in 2010, and she is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Intelligent and Interactive Systems group at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In her research, she uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, ranging from field interviews and user studies in various countries to the analysis of large-scale data sets, to inform the development of novel user interfaces that automatically adapt to cultural background.