Hyperviews:Online Fall 1999 Book Review column

		BOOK REVIEW: International User Interfaces Edited by Elisa M. del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen
	B Y N A N C Y A L L I S O N Boston Chapter
The high cost of failed communication	Elisa M. del Galdo, co-editor of International User Interfaces, tells a horrifying story in her article, "Culture and Design." In 1971, the Cargill Corporation of Minneapolis sent 100,000 metric tons of seed grain, treated with alkylmercury fungicide, to Iraq. Unsuitable for human consumption, the seed was dyed red as a warning. In addition, warnings (in English) and the skull and crossbones symbol were printed on the grain sacks. Unfortunately, neither the red dye, nor the English warnings, nor the skull and crossbones symbol meant anything to the Iraqi farmers who received the grain. The seed arrived too late to be planted, and Iraq was in the midst of a food shortage. The Iraqis washed the dye off the grain, believing that doing so removed the dangerous chemicals, and used the grain for bread. Eventually, 6,530 people officially were treated for methylmercury poisoning, although the unofficial count was as high as 60,000. At least four hundred and fifty-nine people died; some estimates were ten times higher. As this story starkly illustrates, the cost of failed international communication can be human life itself.
A broad introduction	International User Interfaces contains thirteen articles by authors from the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, China, and France; in addition, two authors educated in France are fluent in Arabic. The articles provide broad introductions to these topics: International usability engineering User interface design Cultural models Culture and design Cultural differences affecting an American company training Japanese engineers Cultural difference and User Interface design Arabization of graphical user interfaces Text display and segmentation of Chinese (segmentation refers to the process of breaking an unbroken stream of Chinese characters into words and phrases) Case study of a multiple-language system (a computer with a User Interface that concurrently appears in different languages on different displays) Page layout and binding options for printed documents containing two or more languages Machine translation and large databases of vocabulary in different languages Home visits made in Europe, by an American Human Factors team, to see how European families use home computers Icon design for an international audience. Each article is followed by a bibliography for further study.
Provocative ideas	Although the book is not written specifically for technical writers, I found it useful as a source of provocative ideas about effective writing. For example, the article by Dr. John Connolly has overturned one of my ideas about "friendly" writing. I have always thought that the use of questions in text can make text less intimidating. If I were writing for a novice user, I might write this section heading: How do I delete a file? instead of Deleting Files But Dr. Connolly briefly examines how English and Polish users treat questions differently. Interrogatives in English, he says, can express requests and offers (such as "Why don’t you tell me what you would like to do today?") However, in Polish, "interrogatives really do sound like questions." Thus, Dr. Connolly’s English example becomes, in Polish, a question demanding an explanation: "*Why* don’t you tell me . . .?" And I suppose my "friendly" question becomes an odd form of self-interrogation: "How do I delete a file???" If I don’t know how, obviously, asking myself is not going to help. Another example reveals how a User Interface metaphor may work in one country and fail in another. Authors Masao Ito and Kumiyo Nakakoji discuss the trashcan icon. They point out that "things thrown into a trashcan are recoverable in some countries, but they are gone for good in other countries." I understand this to mean that in some countries, once you toss something in the garbage, it is unthinkable to fish it out again and continue using it – rather the way most Americans will not use a toothbrush they have rescued from the toilet. Imagine if every desktop User Interface contained a small toilet icon, into which you tossed unwanted items, and from which you occasionally retrieved them for further use! Obviously, this image would provide a failed metaphor for American users.
Bookmaking	Some articles in this book could benefit from another editing pass to repair stilted prose and lapses in syntax. Including page numbers in cross-references would also be helpful. The index is adequate.
Read this book?	For a broad introduction to international communication in user interfaces, read this book. It is a good starting point.
	Nancy Allison is a freelance technical writer specializing in online help. Her e-mail address is gardener@world.std.com. Copyright Nancy Allison 1999 submitted to the STC for use in Hyperviews:Online.
Fall 1999 Volume 2, # 4