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Are icons used in existing computer interfaces obstacles to Taiwanese computer users?

Published: 28 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

This experiment was set up to explore the relationship between English proficiency and computer experience among Taiwanese computer users and their ability to identify icons. The experiment involved 60 Taiwanese participants divided into groups, with the aid of a questionnaire and English test, according to their computer experience and English ability. Each participant was shown a set of 20 icons on a computer screen and asked to state what he/she thought each icon was for. Results suggested that computer experience was the main factor that helped people identify the computer icons shown. English ability was seen to positively influence those participants not familiar with computers (the better their English ability, the better their icon identification). Participant's incorrect answers seemed to be linked to how familiar they were with computers rather than their English ability.

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  • (2015)On the Understandability of Public Domain Icons: Effects of Gender and AgeUniversal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Today's Technologies10.1007/978-3-319-20678-3_37(387-396)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2015
  • (2010)A Semiotic Analysis of Interactions Between End Users and Information SystemsReframing Humans in Information Systems Development10.1007/978-1-84996-347-3_5(75-92)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2010
  1. Are icons used in existing computer interfaces obstacles to Taiwanese computer users?

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ECCE '07: Proceedings of the 14th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore!
    August 2007
    334 pages
    ISBN:9781847998491
    DOI:10.1145/1362550
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    • The British Computer Society
    • ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
    • SIGCHI: Specialist Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction of the ACM
    • Interactions, the Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group of the BCS
    • Middlesex University, London, School of Computing Science
    • European Office of Aerospace Research and Development, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, United States Air Force Research Laboratory
    • EACE: European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics
    • Brunel University, West London, Department of Information Systems and Computing

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 28 August 2007

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    Author Tags

    1. English ability
    2. computer familiarity
    3. culture
    4. icon
    5. icon taxonomy

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    ECCE07: European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2007
    August 28 - 31, 2007
    London, United Kingdom

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    View all
    • (2015)On the Understandability of Public Domain Icons: Effects of Gender and AgeUniversal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Today's Technologies10.1007/978-3-319-20678-3_37(387-396)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2015
    • (2010)A Semiotic Analysis of Interactions Between End Users and Information SystemsReframing Humans in Information Systems Development10.1007/978-1-84996-347-3_5(75-92)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2010

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