iBooyah.com: Analysis of web sites among different cultures
The internet is fast becoming a medium of choice for Marketers to effectively target their audiences. The look and feel of a website must be appealing and customized to fit the local culture if it is to be effective. In today’s increasingly digital world, an effective web site must go beyond the site quality, navigation and the perception by consumer. This article examines the role in which culture plays in effective site design.
The results indicate that local web sites of India, China, Japan and US not only reflect cultural values of the country of their origin, but also seem to differ significantly from each other on cultural dimensions (Singh, Zhao, Hu, 2003). As such, the content in these countries are localized, meaning they’re designed specifically to appeal to the audience’s culture. The days of launching web site in a standardized platform across different regions is no longer a successful method. Here are some interesting findings about each culture’s influence (Singh, Zhao, Hu, 2003).
China. One of the most noticeable features of the local Chinese web is the recurrent images of the family theme. To the Chinese, family is seen as the source of identity and is reflected in complex family terminology wherein there are separate words for older brother, younger sister, and maternal and paternal uncles. Chinese web sites also showed high levels of power distance-oriented features; especially prominent were vision statements by the company heads, and “pride of ownership appeal”. Another unique characteristic of Chinese web sites was the use of soft-sell.
Japan. Like China, Japan is also a collectivist and high context society. Japanese people value the feeling of “amae”, which means looking out for others in the group. This is reflected in the depiction of features like online clubs, family themes, and links to local companies. Japan also ranks high on the masculinity dimension, and Japanese web sites prominently exhibited clear gender roles. For example, men dominated all the important positions in the company, and women held most of the customer service positions.
US. Along the lines of American culture, U.S sites prominently depict individualism theme and low context dimension. In general, US web sites were found to be more direct, informative, logical, success-oriented, progressive, and with a less decorative atmosphere. For example, lack of tradition orientation and emphasis on success is depicted nicely on Intel’s web site. Robert Noyce (Intel’s co-founder) is quoted as saying, “Do not be encumbered by history, go off and do something wonderful”.
This particular article was written in 2003 so the information is dated. Despite the dated information, the prediction that was made about the internet’s growth appears to be correct. Although the exact number of internet user is hard to measure, it is estimated the internet has grown to around 1 billion users today (roughly 20% of the world’s population). This figure is important because it supports the notion that internet advertising is becoming the norm. Thus, marketers should be cautious when launching standardized or machine-translated web sites for their global audience.
References:
Singh, Nitish, Zhao, Hongxin and Hu, Xiaorui (2003, Octoboer). Analyzing the cultural content of web sites. Retrieved August 017, 2005 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.nu.edu/Insight/html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0360220201.html
