Reaching a Global Online Audience

Overview

The process of rethinking global online media requires a subtle shift in thought. Although I've always had what I call a global framework, I haven't always understood culture. In fact, despite years of intercultural experience, it was only recently that I began to internalize what it meant to have greater cultural awareness. This knowledge came from a variety of sources: experience as an online developer for various global information technology companies, meaningful interaction with people from different cultures, academic study and, most important, from the mistakes I made while deploying global web sites.

But I'm not the only developer who's made mistakes. Some of the best internationalization personnel in the field, capable professionals I've worked with on a variety of online projects, have also been wrong. How are online internationalization personnel, people who traffic in cultural matters, unaware to the deepest patterns of people? What intercultural human factors should we incorporate into our online deliverables? And what can be done to improve the internationalization process? The answers to these and similar questions are complex, but we can incorporate some of the most important characteristics of culture into our web design projects.

This guide explains the four most important dimensions of culture that you should integrate within any global online project (see Table 1):

Table 1. Intersecting cultural values with online media

Cultural value	Online media
Uncertainty ...