Bridging the cross-cultural language divide through design

Abstract

With the increasing trend of students going abroad to pursue their higher education, cross-cultural collaboration has become increasingly important. This study explores what considerations need to be taken into account when designing a pedagogical tool that helps enhance cross-cultural communication in a co-located context. We use a multi-stage approach that starts with a survey and observations to understand what are the key contextual aspects of cross-cultural groups. In the second stage, we design a technology probe Contributor, an interactive tabletop interface, which is deployed in a workshop involving university students with practical experience in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Results show that key considerations when designing for co-located cross-cultural collaboration tools in the context of higher education are: social accountability and visibility of prompts and accessibility of devices; focus on maintaining participants' attention to enhance conversation dynamics; focus on data privacy when monitoring actions of participants; and providing a platform for participants that allows externalization of ideas through annotations and visualizations, as well as highlighting keywords relevant to the discussion.