The objective of the research on cultural usability is to explore and gain an understanding of how cultural influences lead to variations in peoples' behaviors and practices, and how such variations should be considered in designing interactions with computing artifacts.

With the emergence of user-centered design and more recent HCI initiatives in the development of interaction design , the Pandora's box of "culture" is moving from the borders of HCI to the forefront. It is becoming increasingly clear that the area of cultural computing should be addressed seriously by the field of Computing. The majority of all software is marketed and used outside the US, generally in countries other than where it is developed and produced. Creating or retrofitting software for other countries requires attention to technical detail that goes beyond mere translation. It also requires an understanding of the unique software design and adaptation methods usually lumped under the term internationalization.

In our research, we are exploring cross-cultural design constraints and how these would impact interface design methodology and content. We consider the impact of such cross cultural differences as format, symbols/icons, color, flow, text, script, habits, communication behavior, locus of control, time perception, etc. on design and presentation.

Publications

		"Culturability: The Merging of Culture and Usability"; Reference Paper by Barber and Badre, 1998 ?"The Cultural Context of Web Genres: Content vs. Style"; Reference paper by Badre and Laskowski, 2001
		W. Barber and A. Badre, "Culturability: The Merging of Culture and Usability", Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Human Factors and the Web, June, 1998.
		A. N. Badre and S. Laskowski, "The Cultural Context of Web Genres: Content vs. Style", submitted to Human Factors and the Web, 2001.
		A.N. Badre, "The Effects of Cross Cultural Interface Design Orientation on World Wide Web Use Performance" Technical Report, GIT-GVU-01.03, 2001