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The Unheard Word

One woman's slightly skewed views

Usability differences between Asia and the U.S.A.

This article from Wired.com says that Asians notice more background detail than folks from the U.S.A.

I’d be interested in the implications of this, assuming it’s true. The web is global, so where does that leave us? There are many more Asians than North American people.

But in practical terms, how much does background detail matter? In websites, surely content is the important thing — or is that just my “Western” perspective? Perhaps we should be giving more attention to visual communication (in the background, as opposed to content delivered via multimedia) where possible?

To clarify, I am not saying perhaps we should give attention to visual communication to the exclusion of actual content, but perhaps, given the demography of the web, in addition to…?

What have others found, regarding usability across cultures?

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