How do user cultures and literacies affect the interpretation of Western visual design on the World Wide Web? The rules of Western visual design (as classified by Kress and van Leeuwen 1996) have become generally accepted as the industry rules of thumb for both usability and aesthetic appeal on the World Wide Web (see Nielsen 2000, Spool et al, Siegel 1996). The conventions of Western visual design are widely used to signify information structure and hierarchy and to facilitate navigation - following Kress, this could be termed a "grammar of web design". On the affective level, the somewhat less culturally specific conventions of visual language (as identified by Bonnici 1999) are widely used to create user identification with an increasingly 'branded' web. Following Kress and Bonnici, this study codifies a grammar of Western web design language, and report the responses of novice users from culturally diverse backgrounds to a selection of key design conventions. Following the approach of the New Literacy Studies, it is to be expected that users with well-developed literacies in Western visual design will be advantaged and consequently more successful in their transition to the web as medium. The consequences of this lack of fit between web designs and the majority of South African users' prior literacies is likely to have significant implications in both the educational and general media contexts

Culture and web access in South Africa

Current understandings of South African web users and web user demographics point to the vital importance of user identity in understanding web use. In addition to user income, gender, age, race, and language have played significant roles in limiting access to the web (Webcheck SA Web User studies, MediaAfrica studies). Broadly speaking, addressing 'cultural' issues will be crucial in extending real access to the web in South Africa (rather than simply supplying infrastructure). Unfortunately, however, the drive to broaden web access has focused primarily on the provision of infrastructure in South Africa. This study focuses on novice web users, who constitute 30% of the first year student intake in the Humanities at the University of Cape Town.

Impoverished presentation values and the difficulties of establishing cultural connections

The international web usability literature is not extremely helpful in suggesting strategies to deal with this future demographic shift, neither is the South African web industry adequately prepared for this challenge. Given current demographics, the web industry has, of all South African media, been least concerned with catering for a culturally diverse audience. Despite accusations of racism, the South African media have, over the past decade, become more diverse themselves, and more skilled at speaking to a broader South African audience than they were in the apartheid era. Many of the strategies that have been learned, are not, however, transferable to the web. The web, to use Marshall McLuhan's terminology, is a 'hot' medium, characterised by high interactivity. Consequently it requires a specialised set of literacies which are not entirely transferable from broadcast or print media. On the web, user engagement and involvement are governed by very different factors. In traditional media, presentation values have reigned supreme, and they play a crucial role in manufacturing engagement and credibility. On the web, however, the gratuitous use of rich media in a bandwidth-starved environment has been a fundamental design flaw. On the other hand, without the full power of image and sound, the media are deprived of the rich vocabulary they have developed to convey culturally-inflected messages. On the web, new vocabularies and new repertoires of communicative strategies need to be developed which do not rely in the same way on rich media. This question has not yet been studied to any significant degree, but it will be a crucial determining factor in the uptake of the web in South Africa.

Prior knowledge, literacies, site navigation and searching

The major usability problem on the web relates to the characteristic hypertextual disorientation of being 'lost in hyperspace' (first described by Conklin,1987). Surprisingly large numbers of users cannot successfully navigate sites or conduct fruitful searches. These users struggle to construct coherence when interpreting both the text and navigational conventions of a site. Sites are often poorly designed, and do not provide adequate feedback, interaction or collaboration in the user's search for meaning. Primarily, however, sites do not acknowledge the key role of various literacies in determining the success of their users. When sites are targeted at a broad spectrum of users, culturally and linguistically speaking, this problem is intensified. The active construction of coherence is vital to successful navigation of the web. A user's construction of coherence depends on the existence of a crucial set of well-developed prior knowledges. Users only experience web sites as intuitively navigable when there is a close match between their prior knowledge and that assumed by the designer of the site. The range of literacies involved include but are not limited to:

• Knowledge of formal written registers of language (primarily English),
• Experience in interpreting Western visual design and visual language (Bonnici 1999, Kress and van Leeuwen 1996),
• Knowledge of web and GUI (Graphical User Interface) conventions,
• Domain knowledge.

Approach

Recent tendencies in the study of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) have illustrated the limited value of laboratory studies based on a narrow cognitive science approach. This study will draw on new paradigms of research in HCI, which acknowledge that human activity is situated in both a cultural and physical context. The insights of activity theory, in particular, will form the major theoretical grounding of the study. In approaches influenced by activity theory, the focus shifts from a narrow view of humans interacting with computers, to a broader interest in human activity, as mediated by computers (e.g. Nardi 1996). In line with the activity theory approach, field studies have been conducted to observe the web behaviour of 40 first year students. Once they are given access to the internet, people still need the capacity to know what information they want or need, where to find it, and then what to do with it. So far, the South African web industry has ignored this issue. Without a clearer understanding of how to engage a broader cross-section of South Africans in internet use, we will not be able to address the challenge of providing meaningful web resources once people have access. Unfortunately, however, the role of culture and literacy in users' interpretation of the web has been addressed at a rather superficial level in existing studies of usability on the web. These studies tend to originate from a concern with the export of software to culturally different contexts, and consequently focus on the relatively crude practicalities of "internationalisation" and "regionalisation". The issue of "culture" is receiving an increasing amount of attention from the local CHI (Computer Human Interaction) community in South Africa with some excellent theoretical descriptions of the challenges in the field (e.g. Jackson and Lalioti 2000). While this is an exciting development, it is important to guard against approaches which unintentionally reduce culture into a reified social force or homogenized national frame of mind. Given South Africa's history, this stereotyped notion of culture (however well-meaning in intent) can be problematic. In contrast to this approach, important insights into the cultural and literacy factors which influence usability could be gained through adopting the methods of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. Geertz's "semiotic" view understands culture as the frames of meaning actively woven as people live their lives: “"culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context"” (14). This study applies the more complex ethnographic methods of cultural analysis in its report on South African students' interaction with visual design on the World Wide Web.

Field studies of users

A culturally diverse group of students entering tertiary institutions provides an interesting snapshot of the South Africa's future web users. Field studies have been conducted, consisting of user observations, interviews and bookmark walkthroughs. The following issues have received attention:

• How is the grammar of Western visual design (Kress) manifest in the conventions of web design?
• How do users' visual literacy in Western design relate to their success in navigational and searching tasks?
• Are there any key conventions which exert disproportionate influence on user success?
• How does experience in interpreting Western visual design, relate to successful navigation?
• How quickly and completely are knowledge of web and GUI conventions acquired?
• What is the role of visual literacy in the construction of coherence on the web?