The furiously calm tiger: Cultural effects on colour perception in digital interfaces

Abstract

In our globalised world markets for digital and physical products span numerous countries and cultures. However, traditional design education rarely focuses on cultural impact and limitations on products. On the other hand, cross-cultural communication studies have contributed to a better understanding of cultural differences and new fields like Cross-Cultural Interface Design (CCID) and Intercultural User Interface Design (IUID) have emerged. In view of these development, this thesis examines wether traditional design guidelines are still valid in a world where the target audience of a design can differ significantly from that of the designer.

This thesis is project based and focuses on one area of cultural effects on user interface design, that of colours. My interactive project is informed by a review of cross-cultural research, cultural influenced perception and colour-related research. The project itself is a mobile app that combines game and art elements and was build for an exhibition in Seoul. Its main purpose is to serve as a data collection utility, to validate or dismiss my theory of cultural informed design. With data from Korean and Finnish participants using my app, I was able to confirm that cultures do have some effect on interface related choices.