Chris Khalil’s Musings

Generally, most UI’s tend to embody specific characteristics which make the chosen design solution better suited to some users and contexts than others. However, it is often the case that during the design process a range of different designs will have been considered to match the diversity of user populations and contexts-of-use.

The real problem, however, is that users can often vary so greatly in terms of their knowledge, experience, social and cultural background (this is particularly the case in sovereign posture type apps). They often exhibit a wide variety of cognitive characteristics and affective traits. These characteristics are interrelated and shaped by context. Even when such variety is constrained by the nature of the work, and systems can be carefully designed and constructed to meet a well-defined need, the users will continue to learn and develop both through organisational changes and through individual users changing over time. So how can we design a system that is everything to everybody? Well we can’t, all we can do is design a system that works well for the majority of users in the majority of contexts. However, by designing in a degree of customisability and/or personalisation into the system we can offer a decent halfway house solution to some of these problems.

Customisable systems have a built in flexibility that can accommodate many of the different characteristics user may have; they are designed to accommodate a wider range of interactions than systems with a single fixed design. For example, successful interaction between a human and car is facilitated by the ability of the car to be tailored to our needs. We can adjust the height of the seat or the position of the steering wheel. The wealth of options on our computer systems allows us to adapt the systems to better suit our needs, habits, preferences and purposes. I can remove various parts of the functionality of a UI, for example by having ’short menus’, in order to make it more appropriate to my purpose. I can alter short cuts, command keys to make often used functions easier and quicker to accomplish. By allowing the user to make the UI their own, and customise it to suit their particular needs we can increase their efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction with the system. The alternative is to place some “intelligence” within the UI. This intelligence, can lead to the interface altering its form or presentation to suit the context of the task and the characteristics of the user. Adaptive UI’s haven’t really taken off, as users are not always comfortable sacrificing the locus of control to the machine, and may often be frustrated that the UI has altered it’s form without their consent.

So, for now customisable interfaces seem to offer an improved solution, although really well designed interfaces shouldn’t really alienate any type of user in the first place, regardless of their differences.

International users of computer software have come to expect their software to “talk” to them in their own language. In many cases language barriers and nationalism preclude end-users from utilising English-language software. This is only part of the problem though, even for those that understand English, a major issue is productivity. Users who understand a product fully will be more skilled in handling it and avoiding mistakes. On a purely financial level, globalised software will lead to greater potential for the introduction of products, both in terms of penetration of new emerging markets, and by allowing greater reach to users in existing areas.

The value of internationalising software and user interfaces for the international market is no longer in question and in my opinion over the next few years, markets will be divided between those players who succeed by understand the importance of fast globalisation i.e. simultaneous localization of their products into all markets in all languages, and those that fail. A successful global product or service is not made only for a single language group, it is made for a global community of users. The price of not understanding this can be pretty high, according to the U.S. State Department, U.S. firms alone lose $50 billion in potential sales each year because of problems with translation and localization.

Internationalisation, though, it is not an easy task It is therefore essential to understand the needs and requirements of the international marketplace as early as possible in the development cycle, and then to build the capability to support these into the product design and development processes. It is important to develop the product in a modular, extendible, and accessible way, so that when the need to localise for a particular market arises, the localisation can be done as easily and cheaply as possible. Few people have an issue with the idea of developing open systems these days. This means products that are developed with an eye to scalability, portability and interoperability. It is my contention that a fourth important dimension of any open system as we move into the global marketplace is localisability.