Web design in high and low context cultures (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, grade: 1,0, Fresenius University of Applied Sciences Idstein, course: Intercultural Competences, language: English, abstract: The focus in this paper shall lie on the business' website. When planning a website, the development process includes the research and analysis of the target group in order to catch their attention. Colors and symbols for instance are relevant for many cultures and need to be taken into account when designing a website. Due to the increasing globalization of markets, websites have to be adapted to the customer's needs. Therefore, an investigation on cultural preferences is needed. Based on the study of the IT University of Copenhagen of 2005, this paper aims to answer the question of whether the company Starbucks is adapting its websites to the cultures of their international markets. Furthermore, it shall examine what the main differences of the websites are. Before that, the contexting theory by Edward T. Hall will be explained, followed by an outline on intercultural web design. The analyzed low context country will be Germany, whereas the high context country will be South Korea. As a conclusion, this paper will summarize the findings and give an outlook on the future of Hall's theory.