Cross-cultural analysis of top page design among Brazilian, Chinese, Japanese and united states web sites

Abstract

The aim of present study was to reveal the differences of web design including cultural preference among the four countries that have different cultures. Twenty local municipal sites were randomly chosen from United States, Japan, China, and Brazil. The characteristics of these web sites was investigated from viewpoint of the following seven categories: (1) text, (2) layout, (3) navigation, (4) multimedia, (5) links, (6) items location, (7) color. When the web site had each factor, the researcher gave a “1” for that factor. Chi-square goodness-of-fit test was performed to compare the percentage of “0” or “1” of each factor among the four countries. Additionally, the correspondence analysis was performed to grasp the characteristics of each country. The characteristics of the top page design of the four countries were grasped based on these analyses.