"Multicultural/cross-cultural emotional design:" The usage of pictographs to design emotional interactive environments

Abstract

With the advancement of technology and communication, globalization is realized progressively as geographical barriers break. The idea of visual communication systems started developing under the cross-culture interaction and communication umbrella. The development of such a visual language serves as a universal form of communication bridging linguistic and cultural gaps. The proposed visual communication system cannot be considered a language, but rather a supplement to languages to create better and faster understanding. In this research, we ask two questions; 1. Would the existence of a universal visual language bridge cultural gaps? And 2. we study the effect of having a visual language on the emotional experience of the user, so we ask if the usage of pictographs as a universal language would make the experience of people a more emotional one? In this paper, we propose an augmented reality application that translates natural languages to pictographic symbols. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.