Designing User Interfaces for International Use / Edition 1

by Jakob Nielsen

Overview

Increasing technological sophistication in many countries and the resulting larger world trade has indicated a need to pay greater attention to the international aspects of user interfaces. Many American companies are approaching a situation where half of their sales are outside the United States, and companies in smaller countries often have a much larger proportion of their sales outside their own country. This means that software sales will increasingly depend on their international usability and not just their domestic usability. Seen from a user's perspective more than half of the world's software users will be using interfaces which were originally designed in a foreign country. Usability for this large market of users will depend upon increased awareness of the issues involved in designing user interfaces for international use. As the European community aims to establish the so-called Single Market by the end of 1992, international software will become even more important in that part of the world. And as if it wasn't hard enough to design user interfaces for use in Europe, there are a further set of problems connected with user interfaces for Asia. Both of these issues are examined in depth. This is the first publication of its kind to appear on the topic of international user interfaces, and presents both general guidelines and a number of detailed case studies on the many aspects entailed. The book will be of considerable interest to project managers, lecturers, students, developers of basic software and user interface designers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780444884282
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Publication date:	05/30/1990
Series:	Advances in Human Factors/Ergonomics , #13
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

1. Internationalization and Translation: Some Guidelines for the Design of Human Computer Interfaces (Elisa del Galdo). 2. Transnational Symbols: The rule of Pictograms and Models in the Learning Process (Jakob Ossner). 3. Usability Testing of International Interfaces (Jakob Nielsen). 4. A European Evaluation of Three Document Formats for Hardware Installation Guides (Elisa del Galdo). 5. Two faces of America: Polyglot and Tongue-tied (Robert C. Sprung). 6. ARRIS: Redesigning a User Interface for International Use (Matthew C. Peterson). 7. Hypertext - Towards the Single Intellectual Market (Patricia Baird). 8. Creating International Applications: A Hands-on Approach Using the Hewlett-Packard NLS Package (Dave Taylor). 9. International User Interface for INFOFLEX (Jakob Peter Nielsen). 10. User Interfaces for Asia (Piyawadee Sukaviriya, Lucy Moran). 11. International User Interfaces (Rosalie A. Zobel-Pocock). Subject index.