Skip to main content

Comparative Analysis of Website Usability Between United States and Japan

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Advances in Physical, Social & Occupational Ergonomics (AHFE 2020)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1215))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal differences of web design from the viewpoint of usability between United States and Japan that have different cultures and design preferences. Nine companies that had websites for their local offices in both United States and Japan were selected for the survey of this study. To compare the usability between United States and Japanese websites, heuristics evaluation was performed by the authors. The authors attempted to find the usability drawbacks from four to six pages including the top page in each company’s website. The total number of usability drawbacks that was identified in the United States and Japanese websites was compared. As the result of the t-test, the usability drawbacks that were observed in the Japanese websites were more than those in the United States websites. The ratio of each of the ten usability heuristics was compared between the United States and Japanese websites. Compared with the United States websites, the Japanese websites had more “aesthetic and minimalist design” drawbacks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 219.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 279.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Petrie, H., Weber, G., Darzentas, J.S., Jadhav, C., Liu, Z.: Cross cultural differences in designing for accessibility and universal design. In: Bernhaupt, R., et al. (eds.) INTERACT 2017, Part IV, LNCS 10516, pp. 518–520 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Cyr, D., Trevor-Smith, H.: Localization of web design: an empirical comparison of German, Japanese, and United States web site characteristics. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 55(13), 1199–1208 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Doi, T., Murata, A.: Cross-cultural analysis of top page design among Brazilian, Chinese, Japanese and United States web sites. In: Goosens, R.H.M., Murata, A. (eds.) Advances in Social and Occupational Ergonomics. AHFE2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 970, pp. 609–620 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Barber, W., Badre, A.N.: Culturability: the merging of culture and usability. In: Proceedings of 4th Conference on Human Factors and the Web (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Marcus, A., Gould, E.W.: Cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design. Interactions 7(4), 33–46 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Alexander, R., Murray, D., Thompson, N.: Cross-cultural web usability model. In: Bouguettaya, A., et al. (eds.) WISE 2017, Part II, LNCS 10570, pp. 75–89, Springer, Cham (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Alexander, R., Murray, D., Thompson, N.: Cross-cultural web design guidelines. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference on The Future of Accessible Work, p. 10, ACM (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Becker, S.A., Mottay, F.E.: A global perspective on web site usability. IEEE Softw. 18(1), 54–61 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Zhou, Q., DeSantis, R.: Usability issues in city tourism website design: a content analysis. In: 2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings, pp. 789–796 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Fang, X., Rau, P.P.: Culture differences in design of portal sites. Ergonomics 46(1–3), 242–254 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hall, E.T.: Beyond Culture. Doubleday, New York (1976)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Russo, P., Boor, S.: How fluent is your interface? designing for international users. In: Proceedings of INTERCHI 1993, pp. 342–347 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Nielsen, J.: Usability Engineering. Academic Press, Massachusetts (1993)

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Toshihisa Doi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Doi, T., Murata, A. (2020). Comparative Analysis of Website Usability Between United States and Japan. In: Karwowski, W., Goonetilleke, R., Xiong, S., Goossens, R., Murata, A. (eds) Advances in Physical, Social & Occupational Ergonomics. AHFE 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1215. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51549-2_66

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51549-2_66

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51548-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51549-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics