BIB_10: Hoft, N. (1999). Global issues, local concerns. [Introducation]. Technical Communication, 46(2), 145-148.

This article is the introduction to the special issue of Technical Communication on international technical communication. In this introduction, Hoft maps out the challenges globalization has posed to technical communicators. She starts with the problem of cultural categorization, critiquing three common ways of categorizing cultures in among technical communicators and in the business world in general: categories by history, markets, and languages. Acknowledging that all these ways of categorization have an impulse to generalize, on which technical communicators should reflect. She points out that the standardization of writing that has been taking place is at once useful and insensitive to cultures. After giving an overview of the articles in the issue, Hoft concludes the introduction by proposing collaboration among technical communicators with different background and experiences as a way to address the issues arise from the complexity of international technical communication. 

This article offers a critical perspective on international technical communication. Specifically, Hoft brings on the table some important issues in international/cross-cultural technical communication such as the difficulty of even beginning to define cultures in meaningful ways, and the sort of tension between the pragmatic approach to international communication in business world and the more reflective and careful views on cultures and communication most commonly found in academic community.

BIB_10: Kostelnick, C. (1995). Cultural adaptation and information design: two contrasting views. IEEE transactions on professional communication, 38(4), 182-196.

In this article, Kostelnick discusses the global and the local approach to the cultural adaptation of information design. Kostelnick argues that cultural adaptation of information design is a continuum with global (universal) on one end and cultural-focused on the other. By analyzing the assumptions about perception, aesthetics, and pragmatics of information design these two approaches reveal, the author argues that the universal modernist approach to information design is losing ground to the culture-focused postmodern approach. However, he points out that the two approaches are complimentary to each other and offer pragmatic benefits and drawbacks depending on the rhetorical situations,

This article offers a theoretical ground for the issue of globalization and localization of information design, which can be applied to web design. It seems that at the time when this article was written, globalization and localization were considered contrasting each other. This dichotic view seems less prominent now, when the processes of globalization and localization may be considered two different aspects of the same process.

BIB_10: Choong, Y.-Y., Plocher, T., & Rau, P.-L. P. (2005). Cross-cultural Web design. In R. W. Proctor & K.-P. L. Vu (Eds.), Handbook of human factors in Web design (pp. 284-300). Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

In this chapter, the authors aim to give a comprehensive perspective on cultural effects for Web design. Drawing on the theorization of cultural dimensions, the authors organize the discussion into dimensions of web design: affective dimension (including colors and graphics), perceptual dimension, function dimension. These discussions are followed by a cross-cultural web design guidelines developed based on the understanding of these dimensions of design. The guidelines address the following topics: languages and format, presentation and layout, graphic design, cultural preferences for colors, information architecture, searching, and interaction. The chapter closes with a discussion of international usability evaluation, in which the authors discuss specifically the cultural aspects in conducting the usability testing, participant recruiting, and working with local interpreters.

The intended audience is, according to the authors, HCI researchers and Web design practitioners, but technical communicators can definitely benefit from it. The cultural dimensions used in this chapter provide a framework to categorize cultures that can be very useful when analyzing websites. However, we need to be reflective about the reductive tendency in the cultural dimension approach.

BIB_10: Sun, H. (2006). The triumph of users: achieving cultural usability goals with user localization. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15(4), 457-481.

In this article, Sun addresses the problem of narrow understanding of cultural localization of IT products, and proposes a new methodology of "cultural usability," which expands the scope of localization from the designer's site to the user's site. The article is based on Sun's dissertation project, a comparitive study in the users' efforts in localizing the text messaging technology in the U.S. and China. Sun bases his framework of "cultural usability" on activity theory, British cultural studies and genre theory. Sun argues for a broader approach in IT product localization that takes account in user localization in the design process of IT products.

Sun's framework of "cultural usability" addresses the usability from a much broader context. His insight in the use localization complicates our understanding on issues arise from the use of technology, and sheds light on these issues. However, the concept of "user localization" needs some lose interrogation. Since user localization is not always predictable--in fact, depending on perspectives, some may want to emphasize precisely the unpredictable aspects of user localization when they use the term--it is a question how this concept can be useful for design.

BIB_10: Bevan, N. (2009). International standards for usability should be more widely used. Journal of Usability Studies, 4(3), 106-113.

Nigel Bevan (2009) argues for the wide use of international standards in usability in the areas of user interface design, usability assurance, usability and software quality, and human centered design process. He acknowledges that “usability depends on the context of use, design environment, resources constraints, importance of usability, etc.” and argues in spite of these uncertainties, or precise because of these uncertainty, international standards that can resolve these issues should be widely used. He subsequentially explains the benefits of using corresponding ISO standards in the four areas and discusses the cost issue. In conclusion, he emphasizes the rhetorical function of international standards in business negotiations and internal design decision making.

This article is a useful guide to the international standards relating to usability. These standards ensure the most part the process rather than the actual design requirements, and thus are not contradictory to the idea of user-centered design and cultural usability. However, we need to guard against using some standards without critique and contextualization.

BIB_10: Arnold, M. D. (1998). Building a truly World Wide Web: A review of the essentials of international communication. Technical Communication, 45(2), 197-206.

This article, published in 1998, offers a glimpse into the status of the research in web design for international audiences in historical moment. Arnold argues that because of the increasingly diversified cultural backgrounds of web users, internationalization has become an important issue for web designers and usability researchers. Arnold's discussion about the web focuses on the linguistic, cultural, technological, and legal challenges at that time, and offers a basic guideline for practitioners to design internationalized websites.

This article lays out a few areas of concerns at the end of last century and provides a historical background for our understanding in the development of the research area. The author's discussions about the concerns in internationalized web design are very basic compared to the more sophisticated research more than a decade later. However, it shows how our understanding in web design and cultural concerns has evolved and involved a group of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners.

BIB_10: Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

In his dissertation, Sun challenges the narrow focus on an artifact and its functionality in current localization practices, use a case study of the success of the hard-to-use text messaging technology in China to demonstrate a broader approach to usability studies and localization. Sun examines and compares multiple cases of local use of mobile messaging in the U.S. and Chinese contexts, relying on the framework of cultural usability and drawing on key concepts and methods from activity theory, genre theory, and British cultural studies. The study demonstrate how concrete use of technologies in local contexts helps us understand localization not only on the designer's site, but also on the user's site. Sun calls for a change in localization practices and move from a narrow focus on functionality to a broader socio-cultural perspective.

This dissertation serves as a great example of what's possible in research in web usability in culturally specific contexts. It brings up the problem of "culture" foremost, and invites us to consider it in a broader sense instead of conceiving it as only national cultures. The fieldwork yielded very rich data for analyses to understand complex issues such as individual user's goals of using technology in her/his social context, and how aspects of the technology afford or formulate her/his goals.