Understanding the Importance of Cultural Appropriateness for User Interface Design: An Avatar Study
Abstract
While previous research established that culture plays an important role in technology adoption, there is only limited work on the role of cultural appropriateness in user interface design for users from a specific background. In this study, we focus on the case of avatar design as a user interface element for facilitating positive user experience. Building on the theoretical lenses of social response theory and the “Computers Are Social Actors” paradigm, we develop a research model to investigate how cultural appropriateness of avatar design is a vital driver for users’ trust. We evaluate our research model by means of an online experiment ( n = 313) in the context of online health advice for users from Saudi Arabia. The avatars differed in appearance (Arab, non-Arab), gender (male, female), and clothing (athletic, medical, everyday). Our results show that Arab avatars exhibited significantly higher cultural appropriateness than non-Arab avatars. Furthermore, participants were more inclined to select an Arab avatar (88.2%) that matched their gender (77.3%). Confirming the critical role of cultural appropriateness, our study demonstrates the importance of carefully considering the target audience in designing user interfaces.
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Prior works had revealed how culture factors might influence the understanding of visual language and users' trust in avatar design, but their influence on the design process remained unclear.
“Although prior works had revealed how culture factors might influence the understanding of visual language [53] and users' trust in avatar design [1,53], their influence on design process remained unclear.”
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He, Q., Zheng, W., Bao, H., Chen, R., & Tong, X. (2023) · Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium of Chinese CHI · doi:10.1145/3629606.3629675 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
- Authors
- Aljaroodi, H. M., Adam, M. T. P., Teubner, T., & Chiong, R.
- Affiliations
- Institute of Public Administration (SA)
- University of Newcastle Australia (AU)
- Technische Universität Berlin (DE)
- Venue
- ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
- Published
- 2022-12-31
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1-27
- ISSN
- 1073-0516 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-7325
- OpenAlex
- W4220721179
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 5.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (publishedVersion)
- RUNE (Research UNE) (submittedVersion)
- NOVA (University of Newcastle Australia) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- cultural appropriateness, avatar design, user interface design, user trust, social response theory, Computers Are Social Actors, online health advice, gender matching, target audience, Saudi Arabia
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