There is a well-known set of principles and guidelines to direct the design of user interfaces.
However, the development of these guidelines was based almost solely on the experience and
environment of the Western culture, mainly the United States and Europe. Although many
aspects of computer interfaces may be considered universal, or culture-independent, others may
be culture-department. For example, use of colour, use of context, sequencing pictures, etc., may
have significant implications on graphical interfaces for the Chinese population. In this research,
we challenge the existing User Interface Design guidelines systematically and scientifically with
regard to their applicability to the Chinese population. We also identify popular metaphors of
the Chinese culture, that could make the interfaces easier to learn and less error-prone. The
expected outcome of this research is a set of guidelines for the Chinese language-based user
interfaces, making possible a much needed addition to existing User Interface Design principles.
Traditionally, foot sizing is done by using a Brannock device for the measurement of length and
width. However, from a mathematical viewpoint it is almost impossible to generate a foot form
of 3-dimensions using a set of 2-dimensional measures of foot length and width. In addition,
footwear manufacturers use at least four different shoe scales primarily for the U.S., U.K.,
European and the fourth being a metric measurement. On the flip side, these same
manufacturers depend on up to thirty different measures to build a shoe last. Hence the
mapping is clearly inadequate: two measures from the Brannock device to map 30 measures on
the shoe last. So the question is very fundamental: Is length and width the basis for all other
measurements or is there a better measurement(s) to represent the human foot? The problem at
hand can be classically illustrated using the concept of basis vectors. In the past, the length and
width were chosen to represent the human foot since they were easy to measure and were also
perpendicular to each other. The orthogonal vectors were assumed independent and were used
to represent the basis vector. This is the rationale for the research. The objective of the research is
to elicit in mathematical terms, the basis vector or sizing system that best represents the human
foot so that all 3-D measurements can be derived from the basis vector.
Questions, comments or criticisms are welcome. Please email to: ravindra@ust.hk
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last updated October 30 2010