My thesis is available as PDF here: http://newsofthefuture.net/index.php?/archives/58-My-masters-thesis-available-for-download-PDF-and-Slides.html

1. Ontology-Based Cultural
Personalization in Mobile
Applications
Master‘s thesis by Andreas Bossard

2. Overview
• Problem statement
• Cultural adaptation
• Approach to solve the problem
• Conclusions
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

3. Problem statement
How to adapt a mobile phone application
to the cultural background of the user
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

4. Cultural adaptation
Culture (residence)
-Countries
-Number of years Hofstede scores
Mobile -Power distance index
-Individualism
application -Masculinity
(CAMPA) -Uncertainty Avoidance
-Long term orientation
User interface for
that culture
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

5. Approach to solve the
problem
1. Turn general guidelines into guidelines for
small screen interfaces
2. Design a mobile phone navigation menu
application to implement these guidelines
3. Evaluate the guidelines with the application
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

6. 1. Guidelines for small
screen interfaces
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

7. 2. Design a mobile
phone navigation menu
CAMPA - a Culturally Adaptive Mobile
Phone Menu Application
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

8. Possible menus
Gridmenu
Listmenu
Tabmenu
Searchmenu
Treemenu
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

9. Possible components
for the menus
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

10. Possible components
for the menus
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

11. Change of Hofstede
scores
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

12. Technical properties
• J2ME
• Data saved in OWL File (XML based
ontology language)
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

13. 3. Evaluation
• Pretest: 11 swiss participants
• Main test: 18 swiss and 6 chinese
participants
• 5 User tasks
• System Usability Scale Questionnaire (SUS)
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

14. Why Swiss and
Chinese?
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

15. Tabmenu
Treemenu
Chosen menus
Gridmenu
Searchmenu
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard
Listmenu
Chinese
Swiss

16. Hypotheses
• H : The composed list menu is the most
1
preferred of the five menus by Swiss
participants
• H : The composed search menu is the
2
most preferred of the five menus by
Chinese participants
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

17. Results of the
Evaluation - Chinese
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

18. Results of the
Evaluation - Swiss
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

19. Conclusions
• CAMPA can be used to evaluate navigation
preferences
• Strong indication that H and H are wrong
1 2
• Assignment of Hofstede scores to
components of CAMPA could be improved
• Personal preferences may be more
important than cultural background
• Insights for the different navigation menus
• Insights for cross-cultural evaluations
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard

20. Questions?
Contact me:
andreasbossard at gmail dot com
http://www.andreasbossard.com
Master‘s thesis of Andreas Bossard