Heike Edinger sent me a comment from Berlin on my post about web usability for drunken sailors. With her permission I post it here, translated & lightly edited.

“Drunk or not – one issue shouldn’t be forgotten: When it comes to user interfaces, there are culturally specific patterns of orientation and use. In China, for example, websites that drown you in links (such as sina.cn) are seen as “rich” or “transparent”. The criteria that define a user-friendly website are very different from the USA or Germany. One can also say: that the web and usability has a lot to do with culturally specific opinions about “aesthetics” – exactly as you put it: For the Norwegian newspapers it’s important not to look too intellectual and boring. Yahoo, for example, reacts to such cultural differences by putting fewer links on the start page (what for an American signifies “efficient, lucid and tidy”) than in China (where many links means abundance, density, “richness”). I think researchers use the terms “High Context” and “Low Context” cultures – high context correlates with collectivist societies (China, Japan, but also France) and means: The user prefers to receive a broad range of information – no preselection. That leaves all possibilities open for him to “research” – also in a playful way with emotional navigational elements (often implying non-verbal and above all non-linear patterns). In low context (mostly individualist) societies the user expects that everything will be clearly prearranged, and that the navigation can be trusted to guide him through the content in a linear way, so he won’t have too much work finding the “most important” information. Because the web still bears a strong American imprint, it is often claimed that transparency/lucidity/tidiness has a lot to do with reducing complexity, although the opposite might be the case. Also interesting here – with RSS and Tagging in services such as Flickr and Delicious, preselection of links by authors/experts is becoming less and less important – it’s very efficient when users define the taxonomy themselves.”