This article was published in the October 2007 issue (Vol 13, No. 1)

This article was originally published in the April-May 2007 issue of Indus, STC India chapter's online newsletter. Reproduced with permission.

About the Author

Pradipto Das is a Senior Technical Communicator with Infosys Technologies Ltd., and member of the India Chapter.

STC UUX Community Newsletter
Usability Interface

Social or Philosophical Issues Related to the Design and Delivery of User Assistance

By Pradipto Das

Introduction

User assistance is defined as a form of assistance that is provided to users of products to help them use the products more easily and efficiently. In the Information Technology industry, a product is a software product/application that users use to perform specific business functions. Users of these products/applications use them differently, based on their social and philosophical environment, their cultural context, their learnability and a number of other factors. While the same user assistance must necessarily be designed and delivered to the users of a product, because all users use a particular product/application to perform similar tasks, user assistance can be designed and delivered differently to users, based on their social and philosophical environment. This could enable users from diverse social and philosophical backgrounds use the same products/applications more effectively.

Society - Difference between Western and Eastern Society

Society is defined as the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community, sharing customs, laws and organizations (Oxford Dictionary). Hence, it holds true that each and every society has a distinct culture and philosophy. Western societies have a different philosophy of life as compared to Eastern societies. According to Edward Twitchell Hall, Western societies are low context, monochronic and individualistic, whereas, Eastern societies are high context, polychronic and collectivist.

Edward T. Hall has argued that in a low context society, tasks/jobs are made explicit and much importance is placed on what is actually said or written. Monochronic societies value time and orderliness and just perform one task/job at a time. In an individualistic society, individual uniqueness and self-determination is valued. In a high context society, however, tasks/jobs are not spelled out explicitly and communication/processes/guidelines are assumed to a certain extent. Also, in a polychronic society, multiple tasks/jobs are performed at the same time taking into consideration that time is plentiful. Collectivist cultures value group activity, loyalty and social hierarchy.

Society and User Assistance

Owing to cultural differences in societies, there could be a conflict among members of the user assistance authoring community in the design and delivery of user assistance to users belonging to different cultures. User assistance can be designed in the context of the nature, the communication styles and the working patterns of users. Past influences and experiences of symbols and dialects of users can be leveraged to tag and name the products/applications and write about them. Even the design and delivery of printed user assistance and online help files can be based on the social and philosophical background of users. In a low context society, user assistance can be designed keeping in mind the linearity of tasks performed by users in a synchronous way, whereas in a high context society user assistance can be designed keeping in mind that users can perform a plurality of tasks. Based on past experience different symbols and dialectic processes can be used to design user assistance for users of a high context vs. low context society.

In a classic example based on a study of social and philosophical background of UNIX and Windows users by Eric S. Raymond there was found to be difference in the user assistance for UNIX and Windows documentation. UNIX user assistance is written in telegraphic form and seldom repeated. The user assistance is designed for an active reader, who is confident and can deduce obvious unsaid assumptions and trust those deductions. Whereas, Windows user assistance explains things explicitly and repeatedly and a single topic can be read by itself by an average reader without assuming the reader has knowledge of any other topicIn a classic example based on a study of social and philosophical background of UNIX and Windows users by Eric S. Raymond there was found to be difference in the user assistance for UNIX and Windows documentation. UNIX user assistance is written in telegraphic form and seldom repeated. The user assistance is designed for an active reader, who is confident and can deduce obvious unsaid assumptions and trust those deductions. Whereas, Windows user assistance explains things explicitly and repeatedly and a single topic can be read by itself by an average reader without assuming the reader has knowledge of any other topic

According to Edward T. Hall, individuals in a low context society require more personal space and individualism, whereas individuals in a high context society require less personal space and have a collectivist attitude. We can use this inference when we design page layout for user assistance to be used by low context and high context society individuals respectively. To design a page layout for users who belong to a low context society, we could maintain enough white space along the margins of the page because users would prefer more personal space as a mark of individualistic attitude and can take notes for future references. Whereas, while designing a page layout for high context society users, we could design a page with less space along the margin; because in a high context society users prefer less personal space and as a mark of collectivist attitude may not take down notes for future references and may try to solve the problem collectively by discussion within a group. Even the documents produced by me for a low context society have more space along the margins than for a high context society. Again for a low context society the user assistance designed by me was designed using less of number of colours in the layout, tasks were defined step-by-step whereas an user assistance designed for a high context society was designed using more number of colours and features/functionality were described at a very high-level and had no stepwise breakdown of the tasks.

A study of users' eye movements in the gaming industry by Middleware Game Creation Tools group revealed that "People raised in Asia perceive more detail than those raised in the USA". It was concluded that users from a high context society observed more detail from the background in the picture than users from a low context society. The study revealed that a Japanese or a Chinese user had more eye movement and provided 60 percent more information than a North American user. Based on this study, it would be appropriate to design the page layout differently for users from low context and high context societies, keeping in mind the Primary Optical area and the Terminal Anchor area of the page. It was concluded in the study that the eye movement of a user from low context society would only move along the main points, whereas, the eye movement of a user from a high context society would search for more detailed information.

For either type of user, minimum detail should be provided in the Fallow Area (the area of the page where the user eye movement is minimum) of the page and the 'Rule of 9' (a user task should be broken down to a maximum of nine steps) should be followed to describe the user task. A common factor to users from low context and high context societies is that there should be an established visual hierarchy. Place a fixed point in the page from where all the headings and text can be scanned and devote space to content, make important elements bigger and bolder, do not make the text too dense and ensure continuous flow of the text.

Conclusion

We may conclude that a low context society emphasizes tasks based on individual achievements, whereas high context society emphasizes relationship-based tasks and rewards are based on mutual relationships. Hence, it may be said that in a low context society, user assistance will be very explicit because written rules are assumed to produce fair, reasonable procedures and decisions. Whereas, in a high context society, user assistance need not be very direct and explicit because more faith is placed on personal relationships than on written rules.

Communication is the vehicle through which meanings are conveyed and feelings are expressed. Methods of communication are quite different between the low context and high context societies. But generalization can be quite dangerous as well, as within each society there are sub groups that may not follow the norm. User assistance can be designed and delivered keeping in mind the target audience's social and cultural background, societal and religious views, formal schooling and peer group.

UA Design Differences between Low Context and High Context Society

Bibliography

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Disclaimer: The views expressed are totally personal views of the author based on the experience gathered from the Technical Writing industry of Indian Information Technology sector.