Visual representations and metaphors have shown to be highly contextual; with great variances of interpretations across cultures. The ‘translation’ of metaphors across cultures has presented localization with a great chal-lenge (Evers, 1998; Fay et al., 2004; Shen et al., 2006). While an icon easily arises from a graphical representation due to perceptual similarity but a symbol requires interpretation
and understanding of the relation between a sign and the object it’s representing (Garrod et al., 2007). Thus, when designing at a local level for a different culture, it is important that designers explore and understand the contextual history, belief systems, geography, aesthetics and languages of the culture (Chavan et al., 2009). However, designers from ‘somewhere else’ need to acknowledge that they only have their own partial perspective on the world and can therefore only represent what is known to them (Suchman, 2002). This bias is further enforced through the use of conventional tech-
nology where the information architecture not only depicts particular politics of knowledge but also directly implements it (Christie, 2004). It becomes even more apparent in attempts of digitizing indigenous knowledge systems which often overlook the mismatch of representations and processes with the very systems that indig-enous people use in daily life to organize and make sense of the world. Thus, the entanglement of knowledge, worldviews, representation and recognition directly affects technology design in general and more specifically cross-cultural design and localization endeavors (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012).
In this paper we present a focused study which forms part of a longitudinal research project in which we co-design a 3D visualization tablet application of a specific Namibian pilot site with the involvement of rural community members. Over generations rural communities in Namibia have acquired, re-adapted and shared knowledge pertaining to their lives, activities and environment. This indigenous knowledge, transferred orally by talking, storytelling and rituals, has facilitated communities to foster and sustain their local resources. However, due to changes such as temporary urbanization, mandatory formal education and increased mobility the transmission of knowledge in its traditional way is interrupted, leaving behind a new generation unequipped to sustainably maintain their rural life once they return. The 3D visualization itself serves as a virtual con-text for a number of videos, containing narra-tives and performances of local practices. The overall aim is to enable local rural dwellers to construct their own digital representation of their knowledge system as a new medium of communication, bridging the gap to the migrated youth. However, past 3D prototype evaluations by community members have dem-onstrated major deviations from expectations in regard to recognition and acceptance due to misperceptions and misrepresentations (Rodil et al., 2011). In order to co-design suitable, recognizable and local community accepted visualizations we have launched into a number
of focused studies exploring local perspectives, representations and recognition.
In the following we study community drawing, a social activity aiming at meaningful representations and their recognition to inform locally valid design of visual interfaces for mobile technologies. We further investigate recognition within and across cultural borders, which reflects large variations in interpretations due to differences in contextual knowledge. Lastly, we discuss the efficacy of the adopted drawing technique as a means to negotiate shared meaningful representations within cross-cultural, graphical and interactive visualization technology development.
2. CREATING MEANING OF VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS
Object recognition requires an integration of visual input, processing and semantic informa-tion and therefore conceptual knowledge is a constantly interacting aspect of object process-ing (Clarke et al., 2011; Rahman & Sommer, 2008). Theories describe the process of object recognition occurring in two ways; either bottom-up or top-down processing, although it is now commonly believed that both play a role in object recognition (Epshtein et al., 2008). Knowledge is an important aspect of top-down processing, shaping early perception and allow-ing for the recognition of visually demanding and blurred images limited to once own prior knowledge (Rahman & Sommer, 2008).
Within the context of our research, there have been numerous discussions on the repre-sentation of the world and how it was depicted in the first visual prototype, which lead to the de-duction that the perspectives of the community members varied from the designers (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012). Misrepresentations of scenarios, such as inherently ‘wrong’ body postures, gestures, gait and trajectory of people and cattle, were pointed out by the community members (Rodil et al., 2011).
It has been established that contextual information enhances the speed, accuracy, and effectiveness at which objects are recognized
34 International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 4(4), 32-43, October-December 2012
or identified in case of insufficient visual clues of the object itself (Olivia & Torralba, 2007). Context for an object includes its environment, spatial positioning and its relation to other objects and if presented in its usual context an object can be more readily identified due to decreased numbers of considerations and pos-sibilities (Olivia & Torralba, 2007). Cultural variations in contextual sensitivity have been shown between East Asians and Americans; indicating that perceptual processes are not universal (Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005). Indeed it has been revealed that cultural differences exist in perspectives, depth perception, visual illusions, and categorization (Keith, 2011; Davi-doff, Fonteneau, & Goldstein, 2008; Goldstein & Davidoff, 2008). This has major implications for design of 3D graphics interfaces, as we have shown in an earlier study on perspectives and camera angles (Jensen et al., 2012).
Recognizing the differences in perception as well as the importance of context we jointly explore the consequences on representations with the community members. For this pur-pose we have designed a “HomeSteadCreator” tablet application in which the elders select the pre-designed objects, such as houses, animals, fences, fire places, etc., and place them in an empty plane thereby reconstructing their own environment virtually. First evaluations have shown much interest and engagement beyond the test session yet discussions around the mobile application have revealed its incom-pleteness and need for further co-design efforts. We realized that an appropriate representation of a metaphor cannot be obtained by simply translating the visual representation into the local context without thorough verification of the equivalence of underlying concepts. For example our prototype allowed users to remove or ‘delete’ placed objects, typically depicted by a waste-bin in many operating systems. It was rationalized that villagers would not embrace such an urban metaphor and instead a photo-realistic representation of a garbage dumpsite actually existing within the village was created
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012). During evaluation, community members instantly recognized the dumpsite and its purpose but were outright disturbed and disapproving of the concept, declaring that they would never throw reusable materials into their dumpsite; and the mere thought of disposing a cow or chicken, even virtual, into a dumpsite was disturbing to them (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012). After revaluation it was confirmed that the concept of ‘deleting’ as such does not exist in the com-munity (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012). Thus, more research needs to be conducted on locally appropriate representations being meaningful to the indigenous population. It is vital that we design upon agreed representa-tions and concepts to ensure recognition and acceptance by the target users. Even though we have been involved in co-design activities with rural African communities for a long time, we still realize our own biases and “different” perceptions leading to sometimes “wrong” de-signs and misinterpreted representations. Thus experiences from previous studies in the field and findings in the literature led us to further explore new methods for finding a shared meaning with visual techniques, specifically how drawing activities can be used to open new communication channels and windows into the collective understanding of other cultures.
3. METHODOLOGY
The purpose of our study is twofold; on the one hand we want to investigate the range of recognition of a locally produced and agreed upon representation, by confirming recognition within the same cultural group as well as a group of people from another cultural background. Furthermore, we want to compare representa-tions produced by participants from the two different cultural groups to differentiate local and international representations to inform design. On the other hand, we are exploring the
International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 4(4), 32-43, October-December 2012 35
appropriateness of drawing methods as a sub-stantial part of a cross-cultural design process.
3.1. Community Drawing Sessions
The African rural community, who has been part of our long term research project, is located in the Omaheke region in Namibia, consisting of approximately 20 homesteads, each housing around seven people (Rodil et al., 2011). All rural dwellers are of Herero ethnicity, which constitute about 9% of the Namibian population, but also reside in Botswana and Angola. For the purpose of specific insights into the Herero communities’ representation and recognition, two different kinds of drawing sessions were conducted in the village.
A group session based on the popular board game ‘Pictionary’1 was locally adapted and recorded. A word list was created by extracting high frequency words from previously recorded narratives within the village. Each round started with one word from the word list being told to a volunteer drawer, who then started drawing on an A2 sheet allowing all other members of the group to view the drawing and continuously guess together what it could be. The round ended once one of the group members correctly identified the drawing. In accordance with the local protocol and to ensure contentment of the participants, six elders (all males) and ten youths (six male and four female) were split and performed this exercise in separate groups
(Figure 1). The assumption was that the drawer would focus on the features most important to the community in order to achieve highest recognition within the group, which in turn would give us design directions. We translated the guessing conversation post-situ for further analysis and interpretations.
Another session, referred to as featureless animal, was run with 21 individual commu-nity members, who received two identically printed generic outlines of an animal and were asked to transform these into a cow and a goat (important animals in the community) respec-tively. We intended to identify the most impor-tant features of each animal to guide our design. It is important to note the fundamental differ-ence between the two sessions; with the first engaging all the community members in a more collective style, while the second entails indi-vidualistic thinking and enactment. The ‘Pic-tionary’ session allows for a type of feedback in which the drawers realize the way in which they are representing something is not being recognized by others, thus allowing re-concep-tualization and an immediate approach towards alternative representations or additions aiming for a third party recognition. Equally a ‘Piction-ary’ experiment run by Garrod et al. (2007) showed that the evolution of an icon into a symbol is mediated by constant feedback and communication between members of a group.
One needs to acknowledge the minimal exposure the villagers, especially the elders,
have with pen-to-paper drawing experience. Yet, elders and youths were eager to participate and did not seem uneasy about drawing. Further-more, during transect walks, we observed occa-sions were community members were drawing in the sand displaying ideas, e.g., how the sun/shadows move according to seasonal change.
3.2. Confirmation in Local and International Context
In order to investigate the local specifics and transferability of recognition of the pictures drawn in the village a confirmation study was conducted both in a local and international context.
The Netherlands. 18 pictures from the community ‘Pictionary’ drawing session were given to European university students studying in Maastricht, The Netherlands. The sample consisted of 23 students; six males and 17 fe-males, with an average age of 23.3 (SD=2.4). Participants were asked to write down what they thought each picture represents and were given unlimited time. Afterwards they completed the same animal drawing task as in the village.
Omaheke Region Namibia. The village in which the original drawing sessions were conducted is located within the Omaheke region in Namibia, thus making it an ideal candidate for a local context. The same 18 pictures were presented to 35 students and teachers in the Omaheke region, Namibia. However, four pic-tures were excluded as they contained writing in Herero, revealing the identity of the picture. The sample consisted of 22 males, eight females and five not specified, with an average age of 22.4
(SD=11.0). Again participants had to write down what they thought each picture represented, in their mother tongue (Otjiherero) or English.
4. FINDINGS
The following section describes local situations in which a deeper understanding of a culture is needed in order to produce a sufficient design. In order to demonstrate a varying perception, representation, and meaning of objects/sce-narios the following section will concentrate on five chosen concepts that will accentuate these differences within the original, local and inter-national context with its design implications.
4.1. Global Concept: Milking
A milking scenario was initially introduced in the virtual village allowing for the retrieval of video narratives relating to milking of cows (Figure 2). However, the incorporated visualiza-tion for milking only consisted of men standing next to cows; which created confusion amongst community members when viewing the scenario as they could not clearly identify the activity as milking (Rodil et al., 2011). Through discussion and evaluation it was identified that the posture for milking was ‘incorrect’ as they should be kneeling (Rodil et al., 2011). Thus, postures, gestures, behaviours and specific details help recognize objects and scenarios as well as producing a ‘correct’ representation for the community (Rodil et al., 2011). However, which specific details are important for recognition
may vary for the designer and the community for which they are designing.
The milking picture produced in the com-munity ‘Pictionary’ drawing session was rec-ognized by 21 participants in The Netherlands and by 34 in the Omaheke region. This indicates a high recognition rate and allows for the as-sumption that creating a similar visualization would be appropriate for both the local and international context.
4.2. Local Concept: Holy Fire
The holy fire is part of everyday life in the Herero communities. The fire symbolizes the coherence of today’s Herero society and beliefs that ancestors give life and watch over descendents (Bidwell et al., 2011). Villagers burn the fire continuously to maintain good relationships with ancestors and perform rituals, such as ceremonial slaughtering or appealing to male patrilineal ancestors to address social tensions (Wallace, 2003). The concept of a holy fire only exists within the local context and can be difficult to grasp for outsiders who are not familiar with such a concept. Further-more, the integration of meanings with objects is brought to light with the holy fire; as simply looking at its physical characteristics one cannot distinguish it from any other fire. Thus, mean-ing of an object can be altered by its context, position, surroundings and many other factors. For instance the holy fire in the local Herero communities is always located between the house and cattle corral.
In The Netherlands the concept of a holy fire is unknown; only 2 participants recognized the depiction as a fire (Figure 3). In the Omaheke region 8 individuals recognized the drawing as a holy fire and 15 were able to identify it as a fire. This emphasizes the importance of previ-ous knowledge and contextual information for object recognition and supports the notion that designers have to gain a deeper understanding of the culture. An uninformed graphic designer could have easily missed out on the exact po-sitioning of the fire in the representation of the village and thereby missed meaningful details for the recognition of places.
4.3. Universal Concept with Local Physical Details and Meaning: Tree
Just as with the milking scenario, the 3D graphi-cal visualization of specific trees in the village were highly criticized by the community (Figure 4). Again, during evaluation elders indicated that the trees were missing important features and distinctions; such as the differences between “wild” and “cultivated” trees (Rodil et al., 2011). It was assumed that the designers’ lack of knowledge and awareness of the Namib-ian landscape hindered them in designing the vital features of a tree thereby recognizing the importance of interaction and communication in informing design (Rodil et al., 2011). Yet even after consulting with designers with a better understanding and developing new tree designs the community was still not satisfied.
The drawing in the village led to the depic-tion of an unconventional tree, at least compared to the Western norms (Figure 4). However, 20 participants from The Netherlands and 34 from the Omaheke region were able to identify the figure as a tree. This indicates recognition beyond the residential context of this single local and unusual depiction of a tree. However we have still not resolved how to represent a specific tree in the village. What are we missing in this photo-realistic graphic? Culturally trees have many meanings and associations, which might need to be incorporated into the repre-sentation. We shall continue investigating this further.
4.4. Global Complex Concept with Local Variations of Expression and Details
Mourning. The image correctly guessed as ‘mourning’ during the ‘Pictionary’ drawing session in the village was not recognized by any participants in The Netherlands nor the Omaheke region (Figure 5 and Figure 6). This indicates the complexity of a static visual rep-resentation of such a concept. In the process of drawing, the community members collectively constructed the meaning of the picture element by element as it was drawn. For example, the house was “too big” and therefore recognized to be a “church,” the “elders” were recognized as “people sitting apart on chairs,” as is custom at big events. It was first guessed as a wedding,
then a baptism, then a funeral. The “lining up of women” (in front of the church) represents the locally common funeral practice. Once the group agreed on the funeral features with a bit more guessing they finally got ‘mourning.’ This shows that for the representation as well as the recognition local customs must be known and that more complex concepts need a collection of objects which in their formation express the meaning.
Storytelling. Although no participants in The Netherlands or the Omaheke region cor-rectly identified the picture as storytelling, partial elements of the picture were recognized (Figure 5 and Figure 6). Seven participants in The Netherlands recognized the fire, compared to 25 in the Omaheke region. Furthermore, 9 participants in the Omaheke region gave some sort of indication about sitting around the fire, which is how storytelling is practiced. Even during the ‘Pictionary’ guessing session the participants immediately recognized the fire, the people, the pot, and first guessed ‘cooking’ then ‘storytelling.’ However, participants in The Netherlands suggested swimming, pollut-ing, killing, flying, and most frequently dancing and building snowmen as the depicted activity, which correlates with activities familiar to the participants. This example shows the possible recognition of the object yet without the mean-ing, for which probably more context informa-tion would be required or more collective meaning making session.
From the featureless animal drawing task, a frequency count was conducted for the spe-cific features drawn in both the village and The Netherlands. In the Herero village 21 vil-lagers completed this exercise and 23 in The Netherlands.
Drawings of a cow included ears, eyes, tail, and udder as some of the most important features for both the community and the stu-dents, drawn at similar frequencies. A major difference was observed with horns; with 19 community members drawing horns but only 9 students in The Netherlands. Furthermore, 22 participants from the university drew patterns or coloured in the cow, while only 4 did this in the village. This illustrates that some animal features are universally accepted as important while other features are specific to communities. Thus, designers can have simplistic templates on which they can add features important for the community they are designing for. The aspect of patterns draws attention to the fact that although similar concepts, such as a cow, are universal, their physical characteristics and relevant features may vary across geographical locations and designers should be aware of this.
Pictures of goats had a similar frequency count with ears, eyes, mouth and hooves being important and almost equal for the community and the students. With respect to the tail, 13 villagers drew a short tail pointing upwards, six short tails pointing downwards and 1 long tail. The participants from the university drew only 3 short tails upwards, 10 short tails pointing downwards and six long tails. 19 participants from the village drew horns and 14 from The Netherlands. There was a distinction between the amount of correct udders drawn, consisting of 10 in the village and only two in The Neth-erlands (1 person in the village drew an udder with incorrect number of tits and three did in The Netherlands). Again, one can interpret these findings as some features being universally im-portant and others specific for the community. The positioning of the tail is interesting as a
goat can have its tail either up or down, but many community members drew it pointing up; this may be an additional factor that helps them recognize the animal as a goat. Designers could investigate these seemingly minor factors to add into their design and increase the speed of recognition for the users. It is evident that fine details, which are culturally important, must be investigated and fused into the design processes. This would not be limited to a simple ‘cultural’ look-up table serving as a collection to a group of designers, but with stronger anthropological focus or situated participation and negotiations.
5. CROSS-CULTURAL VISUAL DESIGN TECHNIQUE
From the findings discussed, we note differences in how reality is perceived and consequently represented across cultures. Without communi-cation and clarification designers might assume that their mental representation is identical to those surrounding and proceed to design based on it. However, if the mental representations are different, the community members do not obtain their expected representation and fail to recognize and immerse.
We suggest a new technique in which there is constant collaboration and communica-tion between the designer and the community (Figure 7 and Figure 8). We argue that for an appropriate local graphic representation we need to be ethnographically informed, to un-derstand the relation of objects and situations with their meanings. An essential step consists of investigating the mental representations held by the community. We believe that the adapted ‘Pictionary’ method as well as the individual drawing exercise under all circumstances re-veals valuable information for the designer with a different cultural background. Additionally, following the guessing conversations as well as interpretations from people familiar with local customs, gives invaluable guidance. Further graphical representations are then designed and discussed with the community. This technique was expanded through numerous trial-and-error
International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 4(4), 32-43, October-December 2012 41
attempts at providing the community with a final product. Although ideally the designer would be objective, we recognize that it is im-possible for the designers to represent without their own singulative mental representation. Thus, ideally the design produced represents a shared negotiated meaning, based on both the communities mental image merged with the designer’s mental image.
6. FUTURE WORK
We are particularly interested in identifying transferable methods of informing design from a local perspective across cultural and linguistic borders. We believe that locally adapted ver-sions of the ‘Pictionary’ can serve as a social technique to jointly agree on representations within a community, which could then inform design further. We are eagerly following devel-opments of the recently released social android application ‘Draw Something’ by OMGPOP and intend to explore it further in a succeeding study. The mobile application could shape design by having communities from different parts of the world play with each other, thereby providing information on local representations in a social context. We could ensure wide and even remote participation, improving and accelerating the process of developing appropriate visual inter-faces for mobile technology. Designers could simply draw an envisioned object and let the community guess or the other way round.
7. CONCLUSION
Designers must communicate adequately and ask the right questions in order to deliver a usable product to the community (Chavan et al., 2009). Yet often to ask the right questions seems impossible for a designer from the out-side, thus we explored whether drawings by the community members can contribute to a shared
understanding across cultures to lead towards locally appropriate design. The study presented contributes to the still scarce body of empirical work on culturally meaningful development of visual representations and recognition to inform locally valid design. We have explored drawing as a window into conceptual and visual representation of objects, places and concepts with indigenous communities and have gained valuable insights that have shaped our design process of a mobile application. We argue that this helps to democratize the design and that these methods can be used in the broader contexts of bridging the gap of understanding across cultures where technology or language may fall short.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank all the participants in Namibia and The Netherlands as well as our co-researchers who have been part of the project but not this specific study.
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ENDNOTES1 Pictionary is a word guessing board game
designed by Robert Angel and published by Hasbro since 1994.
