WEB USABILITY: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
How the Organizational Context Shapes Web Interfaces
By Renato Cudicio, M.B.A.
This article summarizes the conference Renato Cudicio gave in September 2004 at the Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal (CRIM), in the context of a number of activities carried out by Montreal's Usability Professionals' Association (UPA).
During the next ten years, with the globalization and emergence of new markets, the question of how to adapt North American and European transactional Web interfaces to fit new global markets will quickly become a major issue.
The major problem is that Web creators and their clients tend to believe that there is one - and only one - way to create a good interface, and that from there all one needs in order to reach global markets is a good translation and a few minor adjustments.
Actually, the quality of their transnational communications is vital to the survival of global firms. Yet they seemed to indulge in misinterpretations and erroneus perceptions of foreign users' decisional and communication processes. This has a direct impact on their Web interfaces.
On the other hand, usability is a key factor, especially in countries where telecommunications networks are still weak and carry little bandwidth, and where Internet users are few and far between, have mostly dial-up connections and are typically less Web-savvy than in the Western world.
Usability guidelines can help make sure that users have access to well organized and relevant content with a minimum of clicks. It can also help limit download times as well as accessibility software constraints.
There are actually two ways of approaching the issue. The North American point of view could be stated as follows: "How do we adapt our interfaces in order to enhance our selling power on emerging markets?"; Conversely, in emerging countries, it would be: "What would be the most efficient way of appropriating Web applications in order to limit our investments and catch up with developed countries from a technical point of view?".
Although usability standards are well documented and available, those who create and maintain Web sites for these markets (whether they are located on site or in developed countries) actually observe them very little. Is it because these guidelines are not well known enough or because people do not have access to them? Or could it be a question of technical expertise?
All these answers may be valid to a certain extent, but we believe that the main reason is that organizational contexts hamper the adoption of usability rules.
The reason for this is that usability guidelines are perceived - rightly or not - as being contrary to the vested interests of main stakeholders.
In other words even if some people within the organization champion the adoption of usability guidelines - promoting, in fact, the point of view of the user/client - this could run contrary to an organizational context where internal politics and vested management interests have the upper hand.
Our conclusion is that many factors, besides usability, drive the creation of a web site and that it is essential to understand them in order to grasp how the content of a Web site is organized. This way, we can more easily isolate factors that influence the communication culture of a given population, thus considerably enhancing the usability of sites that cater to this population.
(c) R. Cudicio 2004 | 
