1. Fukuoka, Kojima,and Spyridakis explain that "although much has been written about how to design the "look" of illustrations for different cultures to ensure that the use of colors and symbols is appropriate for a given culture… we still do not know much about whether people from different cultures have similar attitudes about the use of illustrations in instruction manuals" (458). What we do know about this subject, as noted by the authors in their literature review, is that "users comprehend more information and perform better with instructional materials that contain illustrations," though "previous research still does not tell us what combination of text and illustrations users prefer on first impression or believe to be most effective with step-by-step instructions, nor does the research compare the views of Japanese and American users" (461).
2. In response to this gap in analysis, Fukuoka, Kojima, and Spyridakis (F, K, and S) conducted a study where 13 American and 16 Japanese volunteers with a median age of 26-27 were given test packs with four experimental formats "modifying an instructional procedure except from the English user manual for the Sony CDF 370 CD/Radio cassette player" (463). Yes, this article was written in 1999, and the excepts taken from the Sony instruction manual were written in 1996. A CD/Radio cassette player! Okay, my amusement aside, the test packets for the Japanese volunteers were written in Japanese, and the English volunteers received them in English, but other than that, they were identical. The experimental formats were different "in the amount, location, and detail of the illustrations that accompanied the six written, instructional steps. The full format used a single-step illustration besides each of the six steps. The half format used a single-step illustration beside three of six steps. The overview format had one generalized illustration at the top of the page. The text-only format contained only the written steps" (463). They also gave their volunteers two questionnaires. One of them asked participants to not read the content of the pages, but to rely on only their first impressions, and to "select the reasons for their preferences from a list of options or to write down their own reasons," and then they were asked "whether they would want to use a manual that followed their least preferred format" (465). This seems like a weird question to me. Why would you want to figure out preferences only to ask people how much their preferences really matter? This makes me think of our discussion regarding user centered technology and pleasure, but more on that later. The other questionnaire asked participants to look at the entire instructional text and to rate on a five point scale "how easy it would be to follow the steps with the different formats and how fast they would finish the steps with the different formats" (465). The last page of the test packet included two cartoons "excerpted from a Toshiba computer manual" and pictured an unhappy computer and a man flexing his huge muscles (465). They handed these packets out randomly to their participants, and the results showed that "no significant differences [are present] between American and Japanese subjects in terms of their preferences for and perceived effectiveness of illustrations in user manuals. American and Japanese subjects found the formats that contained both text and illustrations more preferable and believed they would be more effective in terms of ease of following instructions" (471). They suggest that "document designers should realize that a user's first impression of a document may not necessarily reveal how effective a user would find the document" and explain that their results "provide some implications for the localization of user manuals" in the sense that "the designer should… provide step-by-step illustrations as often as possible besides individual instructions… [and Japanese document designers] need not reduce the number of illustrations on the assumption that American readers will be annoyed by the inclusion of so many illustrations… [while] American document designers should consider using more illustrations in manuals to help illustrate instructional steps" (472).
3. Questions!
- F, K, and S explain that document designers are now required to localize user manuals, but "in the localization process, texts are translated into target languages [where] the manual format and the illustrations often remain the same. They argue that "the use of a static format may be caused by document designers not knowing how different people from different cultures use and comprehend illustrations" (458). I wonder how we can see this in terms of user-centered design. Can we see this as a failed attempt? As just a failure? A non attempt? They're translating these texts, but only translating part of them. And with the study results, does it even matter?
- I mentioned earlier that they asked their study participants to rank their preferences and then to talk about if they'd use their least favorite. They found that "most subjects stated that they would not mind using a manual with their least preferred format but that they would not like using it" (467). Do users have to like using something for it to be considered user centered?
4. Connections!
- Some from last week's reading: Redish's "What is Information Design?" and Mirel's "Advancing a Vision of Usability".
- Some from this week's reading: Beamer's "Learning Intercultural Communication Competence" -- Beamer argues that we need to take social and cultural environment into account when communicating interculturally, and F, K, and S's study looks at the different assumptions cultures use while constructing documents and how they're often wrong. Thrush's article "Multicultural Issues in Technical Communication" also highlights the importance of effective communication between cultures.
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