BIB_13: Shen, S.-T., Woolley, M., & Prior, S. (2006). Towards culture-centred design. Interacting with Computers, 18, 820-852.

The authors address issues of cultural factors in user interface design in HCI, and argue for a "cultured" and "design-based" system called "Culture-Centred Design" [sic.] (CCD) in computer interface design. The authors discuss globalization and its effects on interface design approaches such as internationalization and localization. They focus on one design element, metaphor, which is used to test the applicability of CCD to the design process. They redesigned the computer interface that is based on the "desktop" metaphor, and adapted a "garden" metaphor to the test design, which was hypothetically more usable and appealing to Chinese users. They then tested the design with international (Asian) and U.S. users through heuristic evaluation and user evaluation. Based on the results, the authors conclude that reiterative process of heuristic evaluation is appropriate for CCD process, and the use of culturally customized metaphor receive positive response from the users. 

The discussion of the importance of culturally sensitive design approach and some basic concepts expounded in the article provide situate the study nicely in a big picture of culture and design in HCI. However, the study itself is weak due to its sloppy research methods and researchers' assumptions of culture and users. For instance, the design of a test interface is a good way to investigate the process of design, but the design is not representative and thus the user evaluation should not be generalized. The authors carefully avoided generalizing the results explicitly, but a certain degree of generalization is necessary if the study is argued to be of any importance. In addition, the metaphor of garden is problematic without addressing the context of the interface use. Using the interface in a "modern" ("Western") office, which itself is an effect of globalization, will significantly affect the usability of the designs using "office" and "garden" metaphor. Globalization is a pervasive process, and investigating interface design without contextualizing the use in which globalization is an important factor is inadequate and can result in erroneous conclusions.