Are Asians less banner blind than Europeans due to …...2015). The development of search engine marketing (such as Google AdWords) provided an advertising platform for SMEs and gave

2015

Are Asians less banner blind than Europeans due to culturally induced perceptual differences? EUROPEAN MASTER OF BUSINESS STUDIES

EXPOSÉ

ANNA MERTENS

Are Asians less banner blind than Europeans due to culturally induced perceptual differences?

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Keywords Banner blindness, intercultural visual perception, eye tracking study, Asian European banner

blindness, attention, cross-cultural psychology

Abstract Current research on the field of cross-cultural visual perception indicates that American and East-

Asian attention and cognition behaviors differ. These findings in combination with cultural

research indicate that European and East-Asian behaviors could differ as well. Expanding this

topic into the field of marketing, the eye tracking study to be conducted will focus on the popular

phenomenon of banner blindness in order to understand the different online behaviors and the

results to be expected when launching an online campaign in these geographic areas. The

leading question in the course of the study will be whether Asians are less banner blind than

Europeans due to culturally induced perceptual differences.


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Background The Internet is one of the major advertising vehicles of this time. Ever since 1997, when the first

banner ad was developed by HotWired (now known as Wired.com), online advertising has been

growing and nowadays is a business providing a multi-billion revenue stream (Statista.com,

2015). The development of search engine marketing (such as Google AdWords) provided an

advertising platform for SMEs and gave them the opportunity to target ads cost efficiently at

potential customers. Enterprises recognized the potential of direct marketing and it has become

one of the critical uses of innovative multimedia products. Marketing spendings on online

advertising and online shops have increased (Wagner & Meißner, 2008). For these reasons online

advertising has reached a high significance for enterprises all over the world. Though online

advertising provides plenty of opportunities for enterprises of all sizes, there are some challenges

as well. Especially advertisers using banner ads are fighting against low click through rates (CTR).

A study by Benway (1999) discovered the so-called “banner blindness” which is being blamed for

low CTRs. The phenomenon has been researched in different studies, using various research

methodologies, but most of these have focused on countries of the Western hemisphere. As the

Asian countries are an economic force to be reckoned with and many enterprises are attempting

internationalization in those countries, it has become necessary to provide a comprehensive study

on the culturally induced differences companies might encounter during that challenge. This is

especially true for the field of online marketing as technology based endeavors are more easily

established abroad. Hence, the following study aims to provide an insight into the different online

behaviors, which are based in the culturally different perceptions of visual stimuli. In the course

of this study special attention will be paid to the phenomenon of banner blindness and with the

help of a cross-cultural eye tracking study it will be tried to establish the cultural differences if any

between the Eastern and Western populations.

In the past most eye tracking studies have focused on the population of the Western hemisphere,

but neglected that there might be culturally induced differences. At least since 1980, when the

Dutch researcher G Hofstede published his book Culture’s consequences, the international

research community has been aware of the general cultural differences. However, the study of

cultural influences on perception is a field that has only started to develop in the last decade, this

interest was prompted by research proving that culture influences the cognitive system. There

have been several studies about the differences in perception between Asians and Americans by

Masuda & Nisbett (2006), Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, (2006) and Masuda (2009). Masuda and


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Nisbett conducted a change blindness study where they showed American and Japanese

subjects 20 second long clips, they then showed a slightly modified version of the clip and asked

the subjects whether anything had changed. The result was that Americans were more

susceptible to changes in the focal object, e.g. in an aquarium scene there would be one fish very

close to the camera whilst other objects were positioned in the background. American participants

more frequently noticed the clip had been changed when the change affected the object in the

foreground. In contrast to that the Japanese subjects did not notice changes to the focal object

as frequently as the American subjects, however, they were more prone to notice changes in the

background. Hence, it can be concluded that there are differences in visual perception, which in

the case of banner blindness leads to the possibility that there might be differences between

Eastern and Western subjects in a subsequent study.

Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, (2006) selected 1000 random pictures of either American or

Japanese small, medium and large cities. During the first part of the study it was concluded that

Japanese environments are more complex than American environments. In the second part of

the study American and Japanese subjects were primed with the afore-mentioned pictures by

asking them to score the pictures as to whether they like them or not. Thereafter, the subjects

were given a change blindness task. Independently of the culture, subjects that had been primed

with Japanese scenes demonstrated a higher perceptiveness towards changes in the field than

those participants that were primed with American scenes. Still, on average Japanese subjects

were more susceptible to changes than American subjects.

Another finding of the study was that people face very different environments in Japan and the

USA, Japanese environments tended to be more complex than American environments. Hence,

researchers hypothesized that the subjects might have been influenced by their environment.

This hypothesis is also supported by the findings of the frame-lined test conducted by Kitayama,

Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen (2003) in Japan and America. For the study two groups of participants

were recruited: native Japanese living in Japan and Americans living in America. As a test for

bias a Japanese living in America and an American living in Japan were added to the study. The

conclusion of the study was that Japanese performed worse on the task and are more context-

dependent than Americans, which indicates a more holistic view and perception. Even though the

results are not quantified, they clearly indicated that the control group being tested in the host

country was strongly influenced by their environment.


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The framed-line test (FLD) shows that it is harder for Japanese people to ignore the context than

for Americans. The study was conducted with Japanese in Japan and Americans in America.

There also was a control group, a Japanese in America and an American in Japan, it was noticed

that the subjects tested abroad produced results that differed in the extreme from the results

achieved by the locally tested group. Hence, it will be very important to recruit subjects for the eye

tracking study that have not had too much exposure to the German culture. As general

environment and priming seem to play a big role, it should be considered to prime the individuals

participating in the study with pictures of their own cultural surroundings in order to “clean” the

participants of the influence of the foreign culture.

The majority of the afore-mentioned studies tried to ascertain that there is a difference in

perception and further qualified which distinctions can be made. It was concluded that the

perception of Asian cultures tends to be dependent of the context and holistic, whereas the

perception of the American subjects focused on focal objects and is context-independent. As

Nisbett & Miyamoto (2005) suggested, perception style might be connected to individualist

culture, hence, it could be suggested that there also are differences in the perception style of

Asian and European cultures. Even though many European cultures are not as individualist as

the American culture according to Hofstede’s individualism scores, there still should be a

correlation between culture and perception style, and hence, the degree of banner blindness.

Hypotheses H1 – The cultural background impacts the extent of banner blindness.

As reasoned in the last paragraph, it has already been proved that there is a dependency in

perception for American and Japanese people (Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005; Kitayama, Duffy,

Kawamura & Larsen (2003), however, from these differences in perception it cannot automatically

be concluded that there are differences in the extent of banner blindness. Perception is an

important factor that needs to be taken into consideration but additional factors, such as the

commitment of the banners seen to implicit and explicit memory are of importance, too. After all,

the fact that a web advertisement is perceived does not necessarily mean that the information on

it is committed to memory effectively. If there is no cognitive consequence to seeing the banner,

the banner does not have the desired effect.

The dependency between perception and culture also might be strongly influenced by the general

environment a person is living in as reasoned by Miyamoto et al (2006). However, it has not been


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proved yet that banner blindness is subject to the same influence for Asian and European

individuals, hence the study to be commenced will aim to search that research gap.

H2 – European individuals are more susceptible to banner blindness than Asian individuals.

Nisbett and Miyamoto (2005) argued that Hofstede’s individualist-collectivist culture dimension is

connected to the way people perceive things. Hofstede’s scores for individualism and collectivism

suggest that most Asian cultures are more collectivist than the majority of the European countries.

Hence, the hypothesis that Asians are less banner blind than Europeans lies close at hand.

However, this hypothesis has to the best of the authors’ knowledge never been tested.

Should the hypothesis be proven, this could have some relevant implications for international

marketers. CTRs often differ between countries, however SEM/SEA (search engine marketing /

search engine advertising) campaigns are subject to translation, the search engine’s algorithm,

competition and many other inconstant variables. Hence, it would be a valuable contribution to

get further insight into the influencing factors for varying CTRs in different cultures.

As the cutting edge in online marketing is the possibility to target specific people with specific

interests and the opportunity of tracking and measuring their responses to specific ad content,

tag lines, images, etc. If hypothesis number two is proven, this might give useful indications to

practitioners. It would mean that the comparability of international data would be enhanced and

there would be a justification for different CTRs between Asian and European countries.

Especially in a field where it is widely felt that only a measurable result is a result that kind of

information could be an advantage for practitioners. The research to be conducted aims at laying

the ground work for an increase in comparability of international display banner data. Such an

increase in comparability would especially help practitioners’ operation in Europe and Asia and

justify differences in effectiveness. On top of that it could benefit enterprises that plan on

internationalizing to forecast their online advertising budgets, i.e. display banners are frequently

paid per mille views, as opposed to per click payment. Hence, it would be very interesting to know

that display ads targeted at Europeans are less efficient than display ads targeted at Europeans.

Taking the hypothesis, a step further, it might well be possible that priming might get more

attention in online advertising. As Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura and Larsen (2003) found in their

study, priming has an impact on perception. In an online environment, with cooperation of the

web site owners, some structural changes to the web layout could act as a primer for the ads and

enhance their perception. This could translate into more efficient display advertising and,

ultimately, higher revenues for website owners, display networks and advertisers.


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Problem Statement Banner ad blindness as observed by Benway (1999), has been researched and challenged since

1999. The technical possibilities, however, have been advanced. Benway observed that there

was an incongruence between what web designers wanted to be prominent on the web page and

what users actually noticed. Indeed, highlighting links in the form of a banner and putting them in

a supposedly prominent area of the web page inhibited users from finding that very link.

Experiments with different graphical design choices, such as animation, different color, etc. did

not aid users in locating the information on the banner. Following that real life observation, he

conducted an experiment under controlled conditions. In his experiment Benway asked

participants to locate information on web pages. At times the information was contained in a

banner, other times in the flow copy or in the menu’s items. After this, the participants were shown

brands that had appeared during the experiment and brands that had not been used on banners

during the experiment. Participants were asked to identify brands they had seen previously. In

the next step participants were given two different products of the brand and asked to identify

which product the banner had featured. In conclusion, whenever the wanted information was

presented in the form of a banner participants overlooked it more frequently than when presented

in a different style (e.g. as text link or flow copy), only 17 out of 71 participants were successful in

locating the needed information when it was presented as a banner (Benway, 1999, p.33). The

phenomenon also persisted in a usability study that Benway conducted with experienced and

unexperienced Internet users. Hence, Benway reasoned that the cause for the so-coined “banner

blindness” is not only an ad avoidance strategy but more of a perceptual grouping issue.

‘A review of research on visual search shows that virtually all models of visual search agree that

there is a series of stages of attention and that the first, pre-attentive stage is parallel. This pre-

attentive stage guides attention, restricting it to the part of the visual field most likely to contain

the target (Wolfe, 1994)’ (Benway, 1999).

Benway, in his experiments reported that 80% of his participants were not able to recall the

banners they had seen. This number is quite high and, it would imply that in online advertising

only every fifth person actually will recall seeing a banner, which would explain the low click

through rate for display banners very well.

In 1998, Bachofer conducted an experiment in the same field as Benway using eye tracking

devices. He found that 11% of the participants were able to reproduce the experiment’s banners

correctly.


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Taking those findings into consideration the factually low CTR of display banners does not come

as a surprise.

Pagendarm and Schaumburg (2011) introduced the idea that the incongruence in Benway’s and

Bachofer’s findings could stem from the fact that both of them applied different research

methodologies. While Benway asked his participants to actively look for specific information in a

series of tasks, Bachofer’s experiment had the participants browsing web pages aimlessly. As

stated by Pagendarm and Schaumburg there lies a big difference in the two research

methodologies as the navigation style, e.g. goal directed or aimless browsing, has a big influence

on banner recognition. Users looking for specific information expect that information to be in the

menu, flow copy and the link-rich areas, not in a banner. Consequentially, the goal directed

browsing group in Pagendarm and Schaumburg’s experiment resulted to be more banner blind

than the group browsing aimlessly. Ergo, practitioners’ search for the perfect banner design

seems more like a try at relegating the damage of inconveniently placed banner ads. The research

suggests that it would be more relevant to research which host web sites impose an aimless

browsing style onto their visitors.

Another possibility to increase the CTRs of banners could be to pay more attention to contextual

placements. Finlay and Marmurek (2005) stated that priming did not necessarily affect banner

blindness, but increased cognitive accessibility of facts that were consistent with the subsequently

shown banner ad. Hence, the memory of the banner and the product or service featured on it

could be increased if the Internet user had been primed for the product.

A whole different issue has been aroused by Hervet, Guerard, Tremblay and Chtourou (2011),

the researchers doubted that banner blindness is an avoidance issue and hypothesized that

cognition in a study is strongly influenced by the type of memory that the researchers ask the

subject to access. The paper debates that the research methodology of prior studies asked

subjects to tap into their explicit memory by showing web pages with banners in the experiments

and then asking the subjects to choose which banners they recognized or similar methodologies.

Hervet et al. argue that only asking for implicit knowledge means that memory capacity taints the

results as memory is not the same as attention. The research team conducted an eye tracking

study with various web pages that featured text advertisements. The innovativeness in the study

lay within the research methodology which was designed in order to force the subjects to activate

their implicit memory. Instead of just asking whether a participant recognized a banner or not, the

experiment asked the subjects to reproduce a strongly grayed out / degraded version of text ads


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by typing the text lines into an interface. If the subject could not reproduce the entire text during

the first try, the degradation was lessened by 5% and the participant could try again.

Another criticism of the study is that the eye tracking brought to light that results vary when the

web site structure is not modified. If participants can expect the banners to be in the same place,

the probability of them focusing on the banner decreased. Hence, Hervet et al (2011) suggest

that it would be more effective to change the website structure in order to challenge the Internet

user’s perception more frequently, so that banners get more attention.

Another finding of the same study was that banners which are congruent with the page content

are better committed to memory. ‘Even though attention is directed to incongruent ads, these

would be poorly recalled because they have not been processed due to their incompatibility with

the activated network’ (Hervet et al., 2011, p. 215). Hence, banners incongruent to the hosting

web page’s content could get more attention due to their disruptive effect, but congruent banners

are better committed to memory as the according semantic or other fields are activated.

Even though there has been done a lot of research on each field, banner blindness, as well as

cross-cultural perception and attention, to the authors best knowledge there never has been

conducted a comparative cross-cultural eye tracking study on banner blindness of East-Asians

and Europeans.

Research Question Are Asians less banner blind than Europeans due to culturally induced perceptual differences?

Methodology The hypothesis will be tested with an international eye tracking study. Two groups, consisting of

European and Asian students, will be shown real web sites with banner ads.

The study will be conducted in the laboratories of the University of Kassel using an eye tracking

device. The participants recruited should be between 18-39 years, the genders shall be weighted.

The two groups shall consist of 10 participants each, allowing for eventual problems in calibrating

the eye tracker or inconsistent results across one case.

The intervention materials needed are the laboratories with the eye tracking device, pre-tested

English web pages with banners (or text ads) on them. The data collected in form of heat maps

with the eye tracking device will be analyzed with the help of an Analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Additional data in the form of fixations and saccades shall be collected additionally. As soon as

the data has been cleaned the two groups should be compared.


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Detailed research methodology:

As the testing needs to be done individually due to the availability of eye tracking equipment and

the need to calibrate the equipment and instruct participants.

The equipment that will be used is the Gazepoint GP3. The eye tracker consists of the GP3 which

hosts

cameras that

measure the

eye

movements.

The GP3

needs to be

installed

below the

screen that

shows the

experiment’s

testing material as shown on the image below (source: GP3 Quick Setup instructions)

The participant’s head needs to be 40cm higher than the GP3 for optimal calibration.

As the participants will be of different heights it will be necessary to readjust the testing

environment for every participant individually. This adjustment process is estimated to take about

5 minutes for each participant. Thereafter, the GP3 itself needs to be calibrated. The eye tracker

is equipped with its own software that also features a 5-point calibration software that will be used

during the experiment. Additionally, it was also chosen to administer another calibration test, in

order to be able to readjust the experiment’s result exactitude on an individual level. The second

test consists of a short text that participants are asked to read slowly and attentively. By means

of such a test it is easier to determine the detail of calibration. In a short preliminary test, the GP3

recorded a structurally different gazing behavior for one participant while the second participant’s

gazing behavior seemed normal. In the test the first participant seemed to shift his gaze higher in

the middle part of each line, whereas the second participant remained steadily focused on the

text and did not exhibit the same gazing behavior. For this reason, it was concluded that the use

of calibration with text as well as the 5-point calibration test was feasible to be able to adjust the


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recordings according to the participant’s gazing behavior. The entire calibration process is

estimated to take up to 5 minutes.

The materials needed for the experiment are as follows:

Location

Room within the university to conduct the experiment in. The location should stay the same in

order to provide a homogenous testing environment for all participants. It needs to be taken into

account that the room is outfitted with shades, in order to be able to regulate the brightness. It

cannot be too noisy as sound might distract the participants. The room needs to be outfitted with

at least two desks and chairs, a big enough screen and a computer.

Experiment materials

The most relevant material needed is the Gazepoint 3 (GP3) that will measure the data. Apart

from that the testing material in the form of the calibration exercises, such as the 5-point calibration

test and a short text in English and German as some of the Asian participants might have trouble

reading and speaking English.

Priming, as described by Miyamoto et al (2006) seems to have a measurable impact on

participants’ perception. Hence, the experiment itself will consist of websites, featuring

advertisements, of European and Asian origin in order to not accidently prime subjects with their

own or a foreign culture as localized Asian and European web design tends to differ much due to

varying cultural influences. Web elements such as color, language, and design direction, etc.

have varying social and psychological implications in diverse cultures. The localization of the afore

mentioned web elements to a specific culture is called culturability a contraction of culture and

usability, as in web usability (Barber & Badre, 1998). Web sites that fail to localize properly may

make part of their content inaccessible to a population or culture, due to the lacking cultural

sensitivity. This phenomenon was researched and stated by Cyr and Trevor-Smith (2004). Ergo,

due to the substantially different predilection in terms of web layout there is the need to use web

sites of varying cultures in order to counteract any biases caused by accidental priming. Due to

the legally ambivalent situation regarding copyright in Germany, where the experiment is going to

be carried out, it might be necessary to build those pages. In total there will be shown a selection

of 10 Asian and 10 European web pages to each participant. The participants will be asked to just

browse the pages as they like while the GP3 is recording their gazing behavior. Hence, the

experiment will simulate aimless browsing as opposed to goal directed browsing. Aimless


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browsing is a behavior that is imposed onto the visitor by a website’s structure and content, but

also by the visitor’s motivation for visiting the website.

If possible, the topics featured on the websites should vary, as should the topics of the

advertisements. This setup should eliminate differences in attention to certain web sites or

advertisements as the participants quite possibly will have differing interests.

Possible points for recruitment of Asian participants:

- Private network

- Asian food stores

- Deutsch-Asiatische Gesellschaft Kassel e.V.

- On campus (library, cantina)

- Seminars

- University mail distributor

Possible points for recruitment of European participants:

- Private network

- On campus


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Overview of Chapters Abstract

Table of content

Table of figures

Table of abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Banner blindness

a. Findings so far (literature review)

b. The processes of attention and cognition in general (without cultural connection)

c. Open questions

3. Cross-cultural attention and cognition

a. Attention

i. European

ii. Asian

b. Cognition

i. European

ii. Asian

4. Review of prior eye tracking studies

5. Eye tracking study

a. Methodology

b. Description of results

c. Analysis of results

d. Final results

e. Limitations of the study

6. Scientific and managerial implications

7. Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendices


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Plan of Work September Literature review, first draft exposé

October 12th Finalize exposé, familiarize with eye tracking methodologies

October 15th First draft detailed research methodology

October 19st Feedback on research methodology

October 21th If applicable second submission research methodology, book laboratories if necessary

October 23rd Start selecting and preparing materials for actual eye tracking study, recruit participants, familiarize with analysis techniques (ANOVA, etc.)

October 30th Finish recruitment, ask feedback regarding experiment setup

November 4th Finish writing theoretical part (chapter 1-4)

November 6th Complete first trial run with eye tracking equipment

November 20th Complete all experiments

November 30th Complete initial analysis

December 9th Finalize analysis of heat maps, etc.

December 16th Write results and put them into context

December 22nd Complete writing the thesis

December 28th Spell check, proof reading, receive first feedback of correctors

January 4th Finish implementing feedback

January 9th Finish preparation for oral defense

January 15th Buffer


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Bibliography & Appendices Literature Review

Topic Title Author Year

Published in Relevant Content

Banner blindness

Banner blindness: What searching users notice and don’t notice on the WWW

JP Benway, DM Lane

1999 Applied Psychology: An international review, 2005, 54 (4), p 442-455

The discovery of banner blindness

Effects of priming on online advertisements

Priming effects in explicit and implicit memory for textual advertising

K Finlay, HCH Marmurek, R Morton

2005 Applied Psychology Memory can be measured directly and indirectly, the two methods deliver distinctively different results. The effects of priming seem to be more durable than the recall of explicit memory.

Congruence of web page content and ad content

Is banner blindness genuine? Eye tracking internet

G Hervet, K Guerard, S Tremblay, MS Chtourou

2011 Elsevier, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 9, No. 10

Banner ads that are congruent to the page’s content are better memorized. There is a need for different independent assessment methods for banner blindness in order not to confuse the effects of attention and memory. Internet users learn static structures of web pages and, if the structure is not adjusted, are more banner blind as they can expect “non-useful” information in distinct areas of the page.

Cross-cultural perception

The effects of culture on perception and cognition: A conceptual framework

MN Kastanakis, BG Voyer

2014 Insights into the psychology of cognition in various cultures, especially focusing on the differences between Easterners and Westerners.

Context-rich vs. context-independent

Cultural effects on visual perception

T Masuda 2009 Effects of culture on visual attention and color perception


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Cultural differences in perception

The influence of culture: Holistic vs. analytic perception

RE Nisbett, Y Miyamoto

2005 Trends in cognitive sciences, Elsevier

Westerners tend to perceive context-independently and focus more on the focal object, whereas Easterners tend to perceive context-dependently and focus on the whole image in order to see all objects and their relationship to each other. Those differences depend on the cultural context a person grew up in, but there also is evidence which indicates that perception can be influenced by other cultural contexts, hence people are subject to temporary and permanent shifts in perceptional style if they are exposed to different cultures. East Asian perception is holistic and treats the visual field as a single unit.

Expansion of banner blindness to text ad blindness

Text advertising blindness: The new banner blindness

JW Owens, BS Chaparro, EM Palmer

2011 Journal of Usability Studies

Web page areas that are perceived as advertisement receive less attention than other areas. Expansion of the topic banner blindness to text advertisement blindness. Participants exhibited the same navigation style issues as in Pagendarm and Schaumburg. Application of different research protocol, e.g. asking for exact and semantic searches. Comparison of success rates for different ad placements.

Different results according to navigation styles

Why are users banner-blind? The impact of navigation style on

M Pagendarm, H Schaumburg

2001 Journal of Digital Information

Some studies on banner blindness delivered different results, Pagendarm and Schaumburg investigate that occurrence. The navigation style, either aimless browsing or goal directed browsing have an influence on the study results. Goal directed browsing


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leads to more banner blindness than aimless browsing. As imposed navigation style has a big influence when designing the research methodology the navigation style needs to be considered carefully.

Implication of age and gender on ad blindness

Does ad blindness on the web vary by age and gender?

T Tullis, M Siegel 2013 Used to verify the hypothesis that all participants in subsequent eye tracking study should be of the same age segment. Tullis and Siegel found substantial differences in banner blindness for their age groups. Older people tend to be drawn to the banner advertisements more than younger people, in their case participants in their 20s and 30s.

Perceptual differences between cultures

Culture and point of view

RE Nisbett, T Masuda

2003 Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected on April 30, 2002

Westerners tend to categorize, Easterners tend to replicate relationships such as families.

Perceptual differences between cultures

Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances

Y Miyamoto, RE Nisbett, T Masuda

2006 Psychological Science, vol. 17 no. 2

Establishing the differences in visual perception between various cultures, also a good summary of previously conducted studies about the topic.

Frame line tests establishing Japanese-American differences in visual perception

Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look

S Kitayama, S Duffy, T Kawamura, JT Larsen

2003 Psychological Science, May 2003 vol. 14 no. 3 201-206

The framed-line test (FLD) shows that it is hard for Japanese people ignore the context than for Americans. The study was conducted in with Japanese in Japan and Americans in America. There also was a control group, a Japanese in America and an American in Japan, it was noticed that the subjects tested abroad produced results that differed in the extreme from


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the results achieved by the locally tested group.

The effect of types of banner ad, web localization, and customer involvement on Internet users’ attitudes

JV Chen, WH Ross, DC Yen, L Akhapon

2009 CyberPsychology & Behavior, February 2009, 12(1): 72-73

Comprehensive study on the effects of different factors on banners and Internet users’ attitude

Cultural differences in eye movements

How we see it: Culturally different eye movement patterns over visual scenes

JE Boland, HF Chua, RE Nisbett

Further information on cultural differences in visual perception

Culturally induced differences in web design

Localization of Web design: An empirical comparison of German, Japanese, and United States Web site characteristics.

D Cry, H Trevor-Smith

2004 Journal of the American society for information science and technology

Establishes the necessity for culturally sensitive/localized web design. Also compares German, Japanese and US web sites and concludes that there, indeed, are substantial differences between the different web layouts.

Culturability The merging of culture and usability

W Barber, A Badre 1998 Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Human Factors

Establishes the term Culturability, a neologism contracting Culture and usability(as in web usability)


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