What Moves? Culture & Interaction Design

When What Is Natural For Some Is Not for Others: Culture and Design. I was in Asia, giving a talk. I was given a remote controller for advancing my slides. This one had with two buttons, one above the other. When I pushed the upper button to advance to the slide, I was flustered: I went backwards through my slide set, not forward. "How could this happen?" I wondered. To me, top obviously means forward, bottom backwards. I decided to ask the audience what they thought: To my great surprise, the audience was split in their responses. Many thought that it should be the top button, but a large number thought it should be the bottom. But there is more. This is a point of view question, one that has plagued designers for years (which moves? The text or the window?) Different cultures have very different points of view. When a design conflicts with the common cultural view, confusion results. (Article posted at core77.com and jnd.org. bit.ly/NZckqz )