An investigation of current development practice among software developers in Malaysia

*I hope thesis research is appropriate for this group. My apologies if it is inappropriate* Target respondents are those with job roles: Webmaster, Graphic Designer, Software Developer, IT Executive, System Analyst, Project Manager, Programmer, Designers (individual or group who design, develop and test Malaysian websites)

Please take 5 minutes (only 1 page) to complete the survey and (in good research paradigm) please send along to those you feel may fit the profile.

http://www.survey.iium.edu.aspx

This survey investigates the practices of web developers to understand their difficulties and provide support towards good usability and better user experience. This study is part of my PhD degree at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Kuala Lumpur. If you decide to participate in the study, you are free to withdraw at any time without any negative effect on your relations with IIUM.

The results of this study will be included in my published thesis, but any information that could result in your identification will remain confidential. By completing this survey you agree to the following:
1. I understand that my participation is voluntary and that choosing not to participate in this study, or in any part of this study, will not affect my relations with International Islamic University of Malaysia. I have the right to not answer questions I do not wish to answer.
2. By taking this survey I understand there are no foreseeable risks greater than experienced in daily life.
3. There is no compensation for participating in this study.

“Your privacy is our priority”.

Thanks for your participation!

Preliminary Study of User-Centered Design in Malaysia

Click here to take survey

This thesis research is appropriate for the Webmaster, graphic designer, software developer, IT executive, programmer, web designer, software engineer, IT officer, system analyst and technology manager (those who have experience in designing and developing individual or organization’s website/system). My apologies if it is inappropriate*

Hello,

My name is Idyawati Hussein, I am a PhD student and ux researcher. I am currently conducting research toward understanding Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) practice from the local content software developers’ in Malaysia. Below I have a link to my Phase 1 survey for those who fit the profile. This survey is currently gathering information on the IT practitioners, their projects, methods and understanding of their good design practice used (if any). The overall goal of the investigation is to reveal any interventions in HCI methods, rules and theory when conducting local content ICT development. Please take 5 minutes (only 1 page survey) to complete the survey and (in good research karma) Please send along to those you feel may fit the profile.

Please click here.

You Become What You Wear

A standard criticism of sociological research projects is that they go to great lengths to prove what most people with common sense already know. Without exactly taking sides for or against that criticism, I want to describe a sociological exercise that might seem to validate it – except that, for me and a classmate (and maybe for some who read this), the experience made a truism come alive.

What we did: During our weekend, my friend and I went to Manchester city to shop. First, however, we made ourselves virtually unrecognizable to our colleagues at Tesco Manchester Metro and our friends at the computation department, UMIST. We wore clothing slightly inappropriate for the weather, clean but wrinkled, clearly out of sync with the styles worn by most big issue sellers at the area. We carried plastics bags of nameless possessions. Both of us were slightly unkempt. My friend wore a faded shirt and T-shirt, a wrinkled skirt over sweat pants. I wore a wool hat that concealed my hair and ears, an unfashionable coat and scarf, and a horse and buggy glasses.

The aim was to look like a street people and to observe what the difference that made in the way other people responded to us-whether the appearance of poverty would place a stigma on us. We were also prepared to act out of mildly unusual behaviors that might speak of some emotional disabilities, without appearing seriously disturbed or dangerous. As it turned out, there was no need for drama; people turned us off or turned us out on the basis of appearance alone..

Our first stop was the lobby or a large hotel, where we asked for a coffee shop and a bathroom. The bellhop refused us. From there, we went to a One Pound shop, where we more or less blended with patrons, and then on to Piccadily Station and coffee shops later.

It was a stigma time. Some of the children we encountered stared, pointed, and laughed; adults gave us long, incredulous looks. Clerks in Tesco stores follow us around to watch our every move. At the doorway a sales assistant physically blocked the entrance apparently to discourage our entry.

We had money to cover small purchases, and apart from wearing down-scale clothing, we did nothing in any of these settings to draw attention to ourselves; we merely shopped quietly in our accustomed manner. At one establishment we did blow our cover when we ordered croissant with latte and an espresso; that may have been too far out of the character for “homeless” people. Elsewhere we encountered insults, mockery, distrust and rude stares.

So what did we learn? Mostly what we expected, what everybody knows; people judge by appearances. Just looking poor brings with it a stigma, accompanied by the withdrawal of much of the social civility most of us take for granted. Lacking the culturally acceptable symbols of belonging in this milieu, we became, to a degree, objects, with less inherent dignity as persons.

There was, however, one surprise-more accurately a shock. It became clear most strongly at our own store, where our own colleague conspicuously positioned herself in the entryway on seeing us. In a few hours, we found ourselves accepting and internalizing the superficial and biased judgments of ourselves that prevailed among the people we met; we stigmatized ourselves. It’s a good lesson to learn, maybe for those who care less about what they wear.

Men vs. Women Easily Misinterpreted Communications

A man says:

“I’m OK” or “It’s OK“. A woman may respond “I know something’s wrong. What is it?”

“I’m fine” or “It’s fine“. A woman may respond “But you seem upset. Let’s talk”

“It’s nothing“. A woman may respond “I want to help. I know something is bothering you. What is it?”

“It’s all right” or “I’m all right“. A woman may respond “Are you sure? I am happy to help you”

“It’s not big deal“. A woman may respond “But something is upsetting you. I think we should talk”

“It’s not a problem“. A woman may respond “But it is a problem. I could help”

When a man makes one of the above abbreviated comments he generally wants silent acceptance or space. At times like this, to avoid misinterpretation and unnecessary panic, women need to know that when a man says “I am OK” it is an abbreviation version of what he really means, which is “I am OK because I can deal with this alone. I do not need any help. Please support me by not worrying about me. Trust that I can deal with it by myself”. When women attempt to help men by asking questions or talking about what she thinks the problem is, she proceeds to anger him whilst he really wants to be left alone.

“Men go to their caves and women talk.” One biggest differences between men and women is how they cope with stress. Men become increasingly focused and withdrawn while women become increasingly overwhelmed and emotionally involved. At these times, a man’s needs for feeling good are different from a woman’s. He feels better by solving problems while she feels better by talking about problems. Not understanding and accepting these differences creates unnecessary friction in our relationships. Let’s look at a common example.

When a man comes home, he wants to relax and unwind by quietly reading the news. He is stressed by the unsolved problems of his day and finds relief through forgetting them. The wife, also wants to relax from her stressful day. She, however, wants to find relief by talking about the problems of her day. The tension slowly building between them gradually becomes resentment. The man thinks that the wife talks too much, while the wife feels ignored. Without understanding their differences they will grow further apart.

To have a friend, you must be a friend…

Whilst sitting at the Starbucks in The Gardens frontage, I was mesmerized by countless vivacious women in high sense of fashions, men in expensive cars with various predictable and unpredictable body languages as well as topics of conversations by group of strangers ahead and behind me. I was supposed to finish writing a paper to be sent to iUser where Alan Dix will be the keynote speaker of the conference somewhere in December and in MALAYSIA! I really want to meet him as I’ve been using his book as guidelines the past few years and there are so much still that I couldn’t get out of it. The deadline for the paper submission is less than 36 hours as this blog is being written. Unfortunately, the more I read about User Experience (UX) by Mark Hassenzahl, the more I feel that my previous writing was a total rubbish. When I reached the point of throwing away the whole Literature Review part, I started to eavesdrop on the three Chinese guy sitting about a meter or two away from me. They were laughing out loud on the ISO given to one of the selected universities as they proclaimed that ISO should stands for “Ini Susah cali Olang” place. With a quick scanned, one of them wearing  a Tag Heuer wrist watch (not sure if its original or not but the clothing looks very sophisticated) and all with iPhones on the table. I guess, Hassenzahl is right about the gap between practitioners/businessmen and academics in different context. When academics are struggling to get grants, write thousands of papers, working long terrible hours, living in their own world, thinking hard; some people are luxuriate in their after-work leisure time, tittle-tattle on how to get more money out of other people’s perspiration and looked-down on the academics whom perceived as good-for-nothing-only eccentric people thou. And I hope I am not classified as one.

As I flipped through a book titled “The Psychologist’s Book of Personality Tests” by Louis Janda, she mentioned that psychologist tend to be a negative lot. They spend more time focusing on what is wrong with people than on what is right with them. And I think I am merely a psychologist without the official degree. I am writing this post to share a very insightful story on discovering what’s exactly stopping you from living the life you long to lead – and what you can do about it. From the menu on this blog, you can see the “Tests” menu which lead you to test your own personality and intelligence capability. I gather the information from various bestsellers and reliable sources with references attached to it. As I am not connected to the internet at all time and that my brain needs to disambiguate from a serious academic writing, you need to wait for a quite slow update. But I promise to write on the tests which measure barriers that interfere with your interpersonal relationships and so much more. As a beginning, a fully functioning and happy people are able to connect with others, be straightforward and honest in their relationships with not only friends and loved ones but with strangers and acquaintances as well. I hope to share this writing and hope that you get what you want out of life.

Hard work is not enough

No one denies the importance of hard work, but there has to be an innate predisposition if the person is ever going to be an exceptional performer in any particular work/area. Yes, it is right that innate talents are either natural and/or inherited. Psychologists believe that people who are able to perform exceptionally or expertly in some area (athletes, musicians, scientists) have some innate talent or inborn abilities.  We inherit not only physical (such as beauty & height) and intellectual characteristics (such as IQ), but various other “intelligences” that limited how well we can do in variety of possible careers. Good news is we can learn these intelligences apart from IQ (we are born with a unique IQ level). The focus on knowledge as crucial in expertise suggests that determination may be more important than talent in becoming an expert. If a person can learn necessary knowledge and skills, then expert performance may occur. Several scientists have provided strong support that expertise is solely a matter of learning. Their work involves a careful study of the practice of elite performers; people at the top in their field such as chess masters, exceptional musical performers and athletes, compared to the practices of other performers who do not achieve the same level of expertise.

Their claim is a simple one, though very controversial: Performance is a direct function of the total (life-time) amount of the performer’s deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is not simply engaging in the activity but rather practicing in an effortful, intensive, self-monitored mode that is meant to improve specific aspects of performance through repetition and successive refinement. “Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect” These group of scientists cannot disprove the idea that talent is innate, but they argue that there is no evidence for such talent and that the empirical findings can be understood in terms of the amount of deliberate practice.

The talent and deliberate practice views provide dramatically different interpretations of exceptional performance, but there may be one place in which they meet: motivation. There may be individual differences in who is motivated enough to spend long hours practicing. So, if the person have innate talents but they do not have motivation to practice, then, they will not end up successfully. I wrote this post whilst referring to Cognitive Psychology 4th ed. by Douglas L. Medin, Brian H. Ross & Arthur B. Markman’s book. Please read my previous posts on Maslow Theory (how motivation is killed) and different types of intelligences. I am writing to share the love and may God grant you the source of illumination; light

HCI Practices in Malaysia: A Reflection of ICT Professional’s Perspectives

Idyawati Hussein
School of Informatics Science
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Labuan, F.T., Malaysia
idyawati@ums.edu.my

Murni Mahmud
Kulliyyah of Information Communication Technology
International Islamic University of Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
murni@iiu.my

Alvin W. Yeo
Faculty of Computer Science and IT
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
Kota Samarahan, Malaysia
alvin@fit.unimas.my

Abstract—Although Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has been practised by Western countries over the last 40 years, very little is known about how HCI is being incorporated in Malaysian practices. We undertook a 12-week ethnographical study aimed at revealing HCI perceptions at different managerial levels in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) departments and agencies in Malaysia. We describe and discuss the factors that either drive or impede technology managers towards HCI awareness, based on the nature of ICT-related/software development in Malaysia. The result of the study indicates that the developers and corporations’ overall perception of HCI is influenced by their national and organizational culture. The lack of emphasis on usable interface design and scarce information regarding user studies and evaluation are major concerns. Within this context of developing countries, the difficulty of creating HCI awareness and adopting usability may be due to the complexity of the government’s bureaucracy systems. We suggest that stakeholders and policy makers such as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) are more relevant in influencing and/or reinforcing the incorporation of HCI in the workplace and enhancing the usability of the products and software created in the organization at the managerial level.

Keywords-HCI, practitioners, government, bureaucracy, Malaysia

Political will, especially in the upper management is particularly important in the transformational process. The importance of convincing the higher ups is of greater significance especially in Malaysia where Malaysia is ranked as the country with the highest power distance. Power distance is the extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally [20] [27]. Thus, the employees are more likely than not to listen to their employers. A key success factor here is to get the “buyin” from the upper management, and the employees will generally follow suit [16][17]. Social, organizational and cultural diversity are serious issues in implementing human-centered for practices [17][18]. Therefore, the role of HCI professional or specialist and decision makers should be distinct due to their interaction with other stakeholders’ groups in the transformation process [1].

In order to create awareness of the importance of HCI, the national government should create or accelerate to a number of major strategies towards HCI awareness:

• Cyber law enforcement – digital certificate on usability tested websites or digital application
• Research & Development and Human-Centered Technology Innovations – encourage studies and public awareness activities regarding design, with the aim of achieving a better understanding of poorly designed things and the dangers they present, and thus being able to reduce the severity of accidents and human errors.

…(more infos in the conference proceedings)…

We conclude that Malaysian ICT practitioners have a great reverence to the decision makers of any ICT project [26]. This is due to the essence of non-Western values that is respect of tradition, reverence to authority, and overall stability [20]. Hence, it can be considered that reinforcements by the national law would be more beneficial than simply educating designers/stakeholders with HCI theories, models, principles and standard for user interface design development. Though the result on this case was not a conclusive study, the exercise expressed reactions to the national and government enforcement towards the awareness of HCI practices in Malaysia.

When Life Hurts

I would like to quote something that I learnt throughout the years of serving one of the government’s higher institution located in an isolated island. Despite reading motivational books by Stephen R Covey, Dale Carnegie, current reading on Emotional Intelligence by Goleman, I was mesmerized by a sudden remark of a person named Esmadi which concluded all in two words. “ABILITY” & “OPPORTUNITY”. Yeah, people would be able to apply the highest effective habits in their life, living with positive thoughts and having more than one type of intelligences but if you are not given any opportunities, you will never reach the best capability of your life. Ironically, you’ll find that you are not going anywhere and you can’t go very far to change your being.

The impact of these two words can be illustrated in a situation of a person trying to climb a ladder to reach the top of a building. The person might work on his behavior – he could try harder, be more diligent and double his speed. The person might work on his attitude – he could think more positive and probably he would be happy wherever he was. But, what if he leaned the ladder in a wrong wall? His efforts on behavior would only succeed in getting him to the wrong place faster. He wouldn’t get to the right place, but perhaps he wouldn’t care. But, the point is, he would still be lost. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with his ABILITY to behave positively. It has everything to do with having to lean the ladder on a WRONG wall. The first and the most important requirement is the accuracy of the wall.

It was hard. Even when you know that “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. I am not talking about other people’s leadership. I am talking about my own leadership. I should be the leader of my own who climbs the tallest building, survey the entire situation and yells, “Wrong place!”. As an individuals, we’re often so busy and always responded, “Shut up!! I am making progress”. We don’t realize we’re in the wrong place. I looked at my role as a researcher and realized that I had never been given any opportunities to enhance my research career. I wrote several papers and those writing were accepted in the international conferences and called for presentation. I didn’t receive much support as I started wrestling with the financial issues and the management issues. I persisted. I absolutely convinced that I was never given any opportunity to even travel to any of those conferences. WRONG PLACE with no OPPORTUNITY (whether it is given or available for you to work hard for it). Some people say, in life, we can’t wait for doors to open for us. We have to get the doors opened by knocking on the doors. But what if there were no doors around us?

As I continuously observed, other people in the same place, who rarely turn up for work (only come in early morning for clock-in timestamp and later in the evening for clock-out timestamp), received poorly comments on their teaching methods from the end users (students) and lack of language & other abilities; received more opportunities to improve their personal skills. Worst is being promoted earlier than those whom heuristically are more competent. This is about the obvious and non-obvious. Hidden behind the cultures (as long as it doesn’t hit my nose script), people find it is natural and easy to say “oh, it’s their luck!”. Don’t they know that our perception is often colored by our expectations and beliefs? If we work according to certain requirements, definitely we would expect at least an acknowledgement or appreciation in any ways.

I’ve done so much; not that my intuitions are never useful or that my common sense isn’t sensible. Though at other times my intuitions are useless or misleading. Firstly I thought that this place could open up opportunity in terms of my career path; I make the assumption and inference so readily that I am scarcely aware of it. I know life is full of possibilities. In fact, the richness of life’s possibilities places limitations on the ability of us, as human to reason and act intelligently. Intelligent actions require informations and with current situations, I am faced with a chronic shortage of relevant information concerning the past, present and future. I would clarify what does it mean by information. It’s hard to filter through all information to focus on the part that is useful or personally relevant. To cope with possibilities, we have to prepare with certain biases or expectations, which make some things easier and other things harder. Deep inside, is the way I see things around me is part of my expectations, my likes, my dislikes? But, is there a chance that this place is the right place to stay on – spend my time, my life and my own nature?

How Smart Are You?

Types of Intelligence

What does it mean to say that someone is or is not intelligent? Intelligence is certainly not a concrete entity that can be quantified, like the amount of water in a jug. Psychologist have come out with many definitions of intelligence and the closest to the standard dictionary definition: Intelligence is the ability to solve problems well and to understand and learn complex material. Researchers also typically stress that a key aspect of intelligence is the ability to adapt to the environment. (Source: “Psychology”, Kosslyn & Rosenberg)

Psychologist developed a very influential view of intelligence which is known as multiple intelligence and it takes more than one way to shine. Basically there are 8 forms of intelligence (however, I came across latest findings that researchers discovered 9 forms of intelligence. I will keep it update in this post).

1. Linguistic intelligence: The ability to use language well, as relied on by journalists and lawyers.
2. Spatial intelligence: The ability to reason well about spatial relations, as relied on by architects and surgeons.
3. Musical intelligence: The ability to compose and understand music, as relied on by audio engineers and musicians.
4. Logical-mathematical intelligence: The ability to manipulate abstract symbols, as used by scientists and computer programmer.
5. Bodily-kinestetic intelligence: The ability to plan and understand sequences of movements, as drawn on by dancers and athletes.
6. Intrapersonal intelligence: The ability to understand oneself, as used by clergy (people in religious duty).
7. Interpersonal intelligence: The ability to understand other people and social interactions, as used by politicians and teachers.
8. Naturalist intelligence: The ability to observe carefully, as used by forest rangers.
9. Existential intelligence: The ability to address “the big questions” about existence (the newest findings by Gardner)

What is IQ?

IQ is a short form of Intelligence Quotient, a test score used in the Western countries as a general measure of intelligence. To understand the IQ test, and the meaning of IQ scores, it will be helpful to see how this test has evolved over time. In Malaysia, the tests include UPSR, PMR, SPM, STPM. However, local communities under government pressure to produce results, it is worried that the essential nature of intelligence is grossly distorted by the political influence.

Intelligence definition is different between cultures. The difference between East and West may be due to the differences in the kinds of skills valued by the two kinds of cultures. Western cultures and their school emphasize what might be called “technological intelligence” and things like artificial intelligence. Western schooling also emphasize other factors such as generalization, or going beyond the information given, speed, minimal moves to solution and creative thinking. Moreover, silence is interpreted as a lack of knowledge. (Source: “Wisdom, Intelligence and Creativity Synthesized”, Robert J. Sternberg).

Malaysian need more usable designs

This blog meant to broadcast the important of usable design and educate Malaysian about bad design characteristics. Thus, protects users from making mistakes, facing design that leads to errors or accidents and prevent losing money from buying poorly designed everyday things.

Picture shows student’s leg was stuck in a poorly designed spillway grill. (Source: Harian Metro Thursday, 4 March 2010. pp.6)

When engineers fail, people can get hurt. However it is not easy to become the engineer or the designer. The manufacturer want something that can be produced economically. The store wants something that will be attractive to its customers. The repair service cares about maintainability: how easy is the device to take apart, diagnose, and service. Nonetheless, the designer may be able to satisfy everyone. In Malaysia, most decisions were made by those in authority/political influence or financial power. The needs of these people are different and always conflict.

Malaysian user focuses on the price and appearance, and perhaps on prestige value. At home, we will pay more attention to functionality and usability. Unfortunately, most of us do not have the power to influence such decisions. We are only the end user of Malaysian product. Supposed that we buy any products from the supermarket, we should be able to construct the self-building products or operate the things without any instructions or assistance, although we have never seen them. This is what we call “affordance”. Affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. Example: A chair affords (“is for”) support sitting and affords carrying (Source: The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman)

Secondly, everything should be made visible not only to the eye (visual system), ears but also the mind (mapping). Mapping is a technical term meaning the relationship between two things, in this case between the appliances or the things that you wanted to buy  with their design characteristics or functions and the result in the world. The mapping should be easily learned and always remembered. It takes the advantage of physical analogies and cultural standards, leads to immediate understanding. For example, a water tab – the operation of water tab should be visible physically. Unfortunately, to the context of Malaysian giant markets, five-star hotels and many other public places, it took few minutes to identify how to use a water tab since the design is very high class but do not provide a clear mapping on how to use it the first time.

Thirdly, the principle of feedback-sending back to the user information about what action has actually been done or what result has been accomplished. Imagine trying to talk to someone that do not even look at you or sending an urgent email to a person and there would be no reply. Or when you enter a lift which do not provide a display of where you currently are.