Culture and Usability

Paper in proceeding, 2006

New structures in international industry, rapid change of conditions in businesses and a growing global mobility of industry are new conditions for design and provision of buildings and building services. As a consequence facility managers, designers and service providers work globally. An increasing speed of change in conditions makes general rules and values less relevant and conceptions tied to time, place, situation and context become more important. Consequently the conception of what is useful and adequate in a mono cultural situation might have to be questioned. Research on usability has indicated that cultural differences are important issues when developing more useful and sustainable environments. The overall aim of this paper is to discuss the relationship between culture and usability in order to support development of knowledge to better understand how to design and provide usable buildings to clients with respect to different cultural settings.