Wish lists and shopping carts: A study of visual metaphors on Arab e-commerce websites

Abstract

A review of 3065 Arab e-commerce websites revealed that Web designers mostly adopt Western-influenced interface metaphors and pay scant attention to creating Arab culture-specific visual metaphors. In this research, we first collected and analyzed Arabic stories to extract themes for the creation of culturally attuned visual metaphors for use as Web interface elements. After considering various plausible themes, we specifically focused on the “wish list” metaphor as the object of our study. A subsequent eye-tracking experiment based on alternative designs of a shopping website provided evidence that participants paid more attention to the localized elements of website design. A questionnairebased study further confirmed that localization of site design in general, and the use of culturally attuned visual metaphors in particular, gains the attention of Arab e-shoppers. The results provide both practitioners and researchers deeper insights into how culture shapes the design of websites.