Cultural Interfaces
2005 Hong Kong; I was going through our ERP screens with a team member.
The user interface was so cluttered- filled with information- I had a hard time focusing and following the workflow.
These interfaces could be made so much better.
Sharing my original Apple Human Interface Guideline, book, I gathered our Hong Kong and China developers, and talked about human centered design. I extolled Apple as an example of simplicity, and elegance. We will use this to make our interfaces better!
Later one of my team, Ken, came to me.
He said “Elwin, these interfaces are made for our asian teams. When you (as a westerner) look at them you are confused, and uncomfortable. But when we look at them, we are at home. Look around you, this environment is noisy, stimulating, visually cluttered, but we who have grown up here, have learned to filter, we can quickly find what is important to us. When I sit down to a simplified interface, frankly I become uncomfortable, I want to see all of the information, in one place. I will filter what is important to me.
We have different interfaces to our system(s), for EMEA and the Americas, I think you will find these more closely follow your design fundamentals."
This moment dramatically pivoted my world POV.
Original Linkedin Link:; http://bit.ly/2vxm3ns