In the Arab world, mobile health (mHealth) applications are an effective way to provide health benefits to medically needy in the absence of health services. However, end users around the world use technology to perform tasks in a way that appears more natural, and closer to their cultural and personal preferences. Evidence from prior studies shows that culture is a vital factor in the success of a system or product. In view of this fact, this study investigated elderly Arab users’ acceptance of mHealth User Interface (UI) design-based culture. The TAM model was used to shape the theoretical foundation for this study with a questionnaire as data gathering tool from 81 participants. The findings showed that perceived ease of use and attitude towards use had a significant positive influence on users’ behavioral intention to use mHealth UI design-based culture. The impact of age on the relationship between ease of use, usefulness, and intention was significant. Overall, the findings showed that elderly Arab users found the UI design of mHealth acceptable due to its cultural significance. To enhance the design of mobile UI targeting elderly users, it is important to consider the cultural rules and their behavioral applications.

Elderly users’ acceptance of mHealth user interface (UI) design-based culture: the moderator role of age

This study examines the Arabic interface design elements that are largely influenced by the cultural values. Cultural markers are examined in websites from educational, business, and media. Cultural values analysis is based on Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. The findings show that there are cultural markers which are largely influenced by the culture and that the Hofstede’s score for Arab countries is partially supported by the website design components examined in this study. Moderate support was also found for the long term orientation, for which Hoftsede has no score.

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Arabic Interface Analysis Based on Cultural Markers

Designers of mobile applications have long understood the importance of users’ preferences in making the user experience easier, convenient and therefore valuable. The cultural aspects of groups of users are among the key features of users’ design preferences, because each group’s preferences depend on various features that are culturally compatible. The process of integrating culture into the design of a system has always been an important ingredient for effective and interactive human computer interface. This study aims to investigate the design of a mobile health (mHealth) application user interface (UI) based on Arabic culture. It was argued that integrating certain cultural values of specific groups of users into the design of UI would increase their acceptance of the technology.,A total of 135 users responded to an online survey about their acceptance of a culturally designed mHealth.,The findings showed that culturally based language, colours, layout and images had a significant relationship with users’ behavioural intention to use the culturally based mHealth UI.,First, the sample and the data collected of this study were restricted to Arab users and Arab culture; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to other cultures and users. Second, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model was used in this study instead of the new version, which may expose new perceptions. Third, the cultural aspects of UI design in this study were limited to the images, colours, language and layout.,It encourages UI designers to implement the relevant cultural aspects while developing mobile applications.,Embedding Arab cultural aspects in designing UI for mobile applications to satisfy Arab users and enhance their acceptance toward using mobile applications, which will reflect positively on their lives.

Culture in the design of mHealth UI

It is generally believed that Business to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce will help firms to improve productivity to the global market both in developing and developed countries. This study examines the extent of B2C websites communication differentiation on cultural ground. Through a content analysis, Hofstede’s and Hall’s cultural factors were examined in 64 B2C e-commerce websites of Pakistan and Australia. To test for the difference an independent samples t-test was conducted. The results show that B2C websites somehow reflects the cultural environment that surrounds the online buyers. It appears that to influence online buyers to purchase, firms need to develop culturally adapted websites. This study provides some indications that the cultural trend in B2C websites is providing opportunities to business firms to make changes to their market strategies to better trigger their online sale by targeting two different cultures.

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Cultural Aspects of Business‐to‐Consumer (B2C) E‐commerce: Acomparative Analysis of Pakistan and Australia

Internet browsing is a daily activity in people's lives, due to an increase in the number of websites and web applications that touch their interests The culture of the Internet user has become an essential concern to be considered in website design; differences in culture make users react differently to different websites, and the statement ‘one size fits all’, does not apply with websites Most researches have studied the effect of western cultures on web design This research attempts to understand the Saudi culture influence on web design, since Saudi culture is unique in its aspects of religion, customs, and traditions This study analyzes the Saudi culture and how it can influence web design, by asking certain questions to Saudi Internet users through a questionnaire These questions relate to some web design elements that can influence culture perception SurveyMonkeycom is used to generate an online survey to be distributed to potential respondents in the Saudi forums, email, blackberry, and twitter This online software was used for easy distribution amongst Saudi internet users, and was also used, as it can provide simple filtration results Data was collected from 415 Internet users, 391 of whom were Saudi, whilst the remainders were from other nationalities and therefore the nonSaudi respondents' questionnaires were excluded from the total number of responses The main result of this study shows that around 82% of Saudi Internet users are below thirty (30) years old Furthermore, there are other results in the research that help identify other Saudi user website requirements One result shows that the majority of Saudis prefer not to use credit cards for online shopping and human photos need to be used in websites with certain considerations The remaining results are exposed to more of the design elements preferred by Saudi users Therefore, Saudi cultural characteristics need to be considered in web design, in order to attain their requirements and satisfaction, and the author has recommended some outlines for international web design agencies, as a means of enhancing their design elements to meet the Saudi user needs

Optimized web design in the Saudi culture

This paper discusses issues regarding the influence of culture on Arabic Websites. Arabic Websites from three countries serve as an initial sample for this study. Do the Websites of Arabian countries reflect their culture? How specifically? Do they share attitudes about design? Can an Arabian designer achieve what users in other cultures need and want? What are differences reflected in the differences between Arabic countries in the Eastern world and Western countries? This paper discusses these and other issues.

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Sundus Hamoodi

Papers

The Impact of Culture on the Design of Arabic Websites