A Cross-Cultural Study of How Usability Professionals Experience the Usability of Everyday Systems

Yun Jiang Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China Culture influences many aspects of the design and use of computer systems; understanding better this influence on their own thinking may benefit usability professionals who do cross-cultural usability work. Using Kelly’s notion of personal constructs, we focus on one mediator of culture: how individuals interpret the world in terms of their own set of constructs. We conducted 24 repertory-grid interviews with Chinese, Danish, and Indian usability professionals about their experience with systems they use often. The results show that while fun seems important to all the usability professionals in the study, their understanding of fun systems differs across cultural backgrounds. Also, easyto-use and useful systems are perceived as being similar or different depending on the usability professional’s cultural background. Most other crosscultural differences relate to categories of construct not included in conventional usability definitions.