Cultural interface design: Global colors study

Abstract

This paper discusses the design of culturally appropriate web user interfaces in the age of globalization. A research study that focuses on identification and rating of visual web interface design elements that act as "cultural markers" is presented, Within this study, a web crawling technology collected data on verifiable, culture specific, web page design elements. In particular, data was collected on color usage for fifteen countries, based on the large number of country-specific websites. We found that there is a palette of certain colors that is predominantly used for website design in all countries studied. This palette was identified as an "international" color palette to distinguish it from country-specific color preferences, also found in our study. Based on these findings, international and country-specific color palettes, when incorporated in to a Web design tool, will allow designers to develop localized and international interface designs for global social networking and business applications. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.