Website Usability in Asia "From Within": An Overview of a Decade of Literature

As the number of website users in Asia grows, there is an increasing need to gain an overview of HCI research about users and websites in that context. We present an overview of HCI research on website usability in Asia ‘from within’, which outlines the articles written by researchers with affiliations to universities in that part of the world. Based on a keyword approach to major HCI research outlets, we identified and analysed 60 articles from the period 2001 to 2011. Our results indicate that academic websites, e-commerce websites and tourism websites were the most studied web site domains in Asia. Typically, university graduates were used as participants in a laboratory setup and asked to navigate and find information on a website. No systematic use of cultural variables or theories to code, analyse and interpret data and findings was found. We discuss our results and the need for a greater sensitivity to what is ‘local’ and ‘from within’ in HCI research and what this can add to the existing literature on website usability.