Cross Cultural Web Comfortability and the Study on the Influence of Cultural Profiles in Chile

In this paper, we report on our preliminary cross- cultural studies conducted in Chile, to increase the sense of Comfortability in Websites based on Kansei Engineering - a method for translating user´s feelings and impressions into product parameters. Web Comfortability is a new concept that we are proposing, aiming at the post-Web Usability paradigm, by supporting the user to interact with Websites in a stressless condition. There are many factors that might influence on the Web Comfortability, such as design elements (design layout, color combination, typographic layout), cultural background and so on. In previous work, we have explored the influence of layouts and other design element combinations on the Web Comfortability. However, we have performed the study to users with similar cultural backgrounds. As the next step, we aim to extend this study and check the influence of design elements having different meanings in different cultures regarding Web Comfortability.