Cultural design analysis of Arabic websites
Nouf Khashman, Andrew Large · Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2011
Abstract Culture is argued to be one of the attributes affecting the usability of interfaces. This study examines the design characteristics of government websites from five Arab countries using Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Organizational and graphical elements from ministry websites from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates were examined using content analysis. Element frequency scores were correlated with Hofstede's dimensions and interpreted based mainly on the model developed by Marcus and Gould. The results suggest that Hofstede's model of culture does not fully reflect the design characteristics of Arabic websites.