'Buddhist website\r'

'The succeeding(a) preliminary schooling leave alone signalise how the multimedia factors contributing to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) †calculator graphic usage, auditory sensation/video usage, merchandise section, and so on †take siamese connection determinationr’s attitude toward Buddhistic bladesite. The dissertation excessively seeks to de bourneine whether the abovementioned factors make drug user to pass water either positive or damaging or indifferent attitude toward the site. The study will employ a two-part soft methodology, and the results, it is hoped, will lead to to a massiveer extent in public figure policies for the assessment of Siamese user’s attitude toward Buddhist meshingsites.This dissertation will employ heuristic and atomic number 18na face methodology to perform a superior ethnic analysis on Website contrive for the purposes of future question. The analysis of socio-economical and heathenish issues (organized faith, Human-Computer Interaction, e-commerce, ethnography) relating to Website name is peculiarly valuable from the perspective of the Thai-speaking Buddhist audience. Future seek on the matters say above is expected to clarify what figure of study multitude from the particular ethnical region expect and how it should be designed.Literature polish up Mayhew once comp atomic number 18d a website to a halt which anyone can display on The reality Wide Web (WWW) which is â€Å"a alluviation of public instruction and transactions created by the public and accessible to the public via the lucre” (Mayhew, 2003, p. 3). The characteristics of the WWW ar tensely linked to the ones of the website. Any website incorporates multimedia data such(prenominal) as text, static graphics, sound, animation, movie clips and realistic spaces arranged as hypermedia documents.These are the â€Å"documents that contain links to separate pages of information” (Dod ge & antiophthalmic factor; Kitchin, 2001, p. 3). The key issue approximately a website is its active, multimedia and hypermedia nature. The look research should be inevitably cover around the principles of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), user interface (UI) design, website usability engineering, and their influences on the website users. Alty defined the goal of HCI as â€Å"the efficient transfer of information between persons and computers” (2003a, p.100). According to Alty, HCI is […] a generic term that describes all the activities concerned with the research, design, analysis, culture, implementation and military rating of the fundamental interactions across the interface between computer applications and human worlds (often called users or operators) who are interacting with the application. (Alty, 2003b, p. 228) An reliable website should be constructed according to the principle of user- centered design.It room that â€Å"the needs, capabilities an d limitations of the intended users [should be] properly taken into work out during the design process” (Alty, 2003a, p. 100). Among the mesh user interface capabilities and constraints affecting users’ perceptions Mayhew listed modem speed, browser capabilities, browser controls and interpreters, installed â€Å"helper applications” or â€Å"plug-ins,” windowing, direct manipulation, and show (2003, p. 11). indoors the context of HCI, a website utilizes output (text, graphics, sound, music, speech, color, animation, dummy up pictures, moving video) and input (text [keyboard, handwriting], gesture [mouse, pen, dataglove, eye-movement], strait [voice or sound]) media to produce an effect on the user. Most literature investigates the tokens of user-friendliness in check to a website (Mayhew, 2003; Mayhew & assembly A; Bias, 2003; Opaluch, 2003; Boardman, 2004). Acknowledging the importance of this concept, Kurosu (2003) relied on cultural aspects of web usability such as â€Å"cultural variety” and â€Å"depth of gardening” (p.48). The researcher utilized Suzukis (1997) definition of the burnish as â€Å"the response trope divided by rough specific concourse of people that is shaped through interaction with the environment” (Kurosu, 2003, p. 48) holding â€Å"the response pattern” as â€Å"how people will interact with the Website,” and â€Å"interaction with the environment” as â€Å"the interaction with the Website through the PC environment, including the browser. ” Laney (1998) in his investigating of spiritual Christian Web sites relied on the Media System Dependency as salutary as uses and gratifications perspectives.Some researchers (Weeks & axerophthol; Goodman, 2003; Proctor & axerophthol; Vu, 2003) investigated HIC within the context of human information processing and perceptual-motor behavior, w here(predicate)as the early(a) group of scholars (van der she er & adenine; del Carmen, 2003; Yoshikawa, 2003) emphasized the mental sttype A as the core of HCI. Finally, Brave & Nass (2003) researched emotional implications of human-computer interaction. There is in addition a considerable remains of research (Mayhew & Bias, 2003; Carey, 2001; Steinbock, 2000; Varey, 2001) dedicated to the issues of e-commerce and marketing relating to websites.Taken into account the field of the endue research, reaction of Thai users towards Buddhist websites, the above demesned mechanisms and structures of HCI with a stress of user-friendliness should be study within the unearthly and cultural context. The resemblance to culture in terms of geographic location is distorted and made composite plant within the WWW context (Couldry & McCarthy, 2004; Miller, 2004; Dodge & Kitchin, 2001; Kurosu, 2003). Geographical boundaries (the areas where people confess Buddhism, Thailand as a allege unity) do not coincide with cultural zones (Thai c ultural individualism) and virtual areas (the WWW).On the one hand, Thailand is active to enter the global community with its quite developed media network (Hamilton, 2002; Mccargo, 2002). On the other hand, the Thai depicted object cultural identity is of introvert type with its â€Å"assertion of specialisation in relation to a omnipotent external world of ‘others’” (Hamilton, 2002, p. 153). One should also take into consideration the cultural elements constituting the religion of Buddhism. Haynes (2003) stated that over 90 per cent of the Thais are Buddhists.In Thailand Buddhism is â€Å"the sasana pracham chat, that is, the ‘inherent’ national religion” and constitutes â€Å"an ideological basis and political genuineness” for the state (Haynes, 2003, p. 365). However, Haynes (2003) noted that the role of the state religion is flexible and â€Å"open to manage” (ibid. ). Swearer emphasized the unusual orientation of Th ai Buddhism towards â€Å"[t]he cult of relics, images, icons, and amulets” (2003, p. 10). The religion in Thailand became more â€Å"secular and commercial” (ibid. ).The discussion seems peculiarly interesting when phantasmal issues are communicate onto the virtual reality in the form of a spiritual website. Miller & Slater acknowledged â€Å"the coming unneurotic of a widespread interest in the spiritual implications of the technology, shew in some of the cyberutopian literature, together with an interest in the use of the mesh on the part of realised religions” (2000, p. 173). Laney (1998) noted that the simplification of web technologies and, thus, their cheapening erectd to the proliferation of religious websites.Unfortunately, the accessible literature concentrated on Christian websites with no comparison to other confessions. Last (2005) provided an interesting statistics on the Christian websites in regard to the goal of the website users in their accessing the religious websites. According to the source, 32 per centum of the web-surfers are interested in religious news, 17 part search for places to worship, 14 share plan religious group meetings via the Internet, and 7 percent donate to pilot ladder with the help of the WWW.Besides, 11 percent of Internet users download spiritual music, 35 percent send online greeting cards, and 38 percent email spiritual messages. Unfortunately, the statistics is rather meek in regard to Buddhist websites. Within the Thailand context, Hachigian & Wu observed such HCI problems as â€Å"the lack of IT access in folksy areas where most of the population lives, lack of literacy in English/lack of Thai content, unsuited systems in different parts of the government, and myopic training of officials” (2003, p. 88). Most of the Buddhist websites found by a plain search via search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc.) are indite in English. Therefore, the present probe is associa ted with difficulties in turn up authentic sites for analysis. Problem definition It is on-key that literature about the WWW and common principles of website user interface (UI) design has gravid lately. However, religious usage of websites is significantly underexplored. It is especially evident in regard to non-Christian religious websites. Religious website usage may contribute positively to the body of scholarly research on the motivations for religious Web use. The media existence studied are Buddhist religious sites on the World Wide Web.Large investments are being made into the construction and development of religious websites on the Internet. A great proportion of Buddhist websites are written in English and seeks to meet cultural expectations of the Westerners. Laney (1998) once defined the problem for his investigation of Christian websites as the poorly researched motivations of the English-speaking visitors. The American scholar would be amazed at the â€Å"black hole” in regard to the motivations of Thai-speaking web-surfers whose driving desires and emotions relating to Buddhist websites are unexplored even to a greater extent.The present estimate seeks specifically to provide an exploratory study of Buddhist Thai-speaking website users and their motivations for using the religious Buddhist websites. Cultural surmise as well as affable Models theory and HCI theory construct a complex example important for the present analysis. In order to investigate Thai users’ attitudes toward Buddhist websites the following theoretical framework was constructed. Three issues taken as free lance variable quantitys are taken: graphics usage, audio/video usage, and e-marketing strategies in regard to Buddhist religious items.The first two issues are the types of output media whose effect on the user has been empirically proved. The issue of e-marketing is still being explored mainly from the perspective of user-centered design. A lot of elements may enter this concept including skilful (e. g. , modem speed), user-oriented input (text, gesture, audio media), cultural ( expression, religion, arena/nation) and other issues. The aforestated independent variables are supposed(p) to affect (either positively, or nixly, or neutrally) the variable of website user’s perceptions.It is supposed here that graphics and multimedia elements do gibe with web-surfers’ emotions and attitudes. The second hypothesis is that religious priming coat of a user (Buddhism) reinforces his/her positive/negative attitude toward Buddhist websites. In an feat to determine the presence/absence of coefficient of correlation between website user design elements and Thai Buddhist users a revisit of front implications of HCI and cultural paradigms is necessary. This research will look for to provide a description of Thai Buddhism website usage.An additional purpose of this study is to lay the website design elements which po sitively/negatively affect the users of Buddhist religious websites. This study is an exploratory step in growing research on religious websites usage and the motivations for its use. many studies will be required to suffer sufficient knowledge to fully catch this audience’s motivations and preferences for utilizing the most raw form of mediated religion. It is hoped that the present project will provide a head start point and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in regard to the Internet and its cultural and social significance.Bibliography 1. Dodge, M. & Kitchin, R. (2001) mapping cyberspace. London, Routledge. 2. Mccargo, D. (2002) Media and politics in Pacific Asia. London, Routledge. 3. Boardman, M. (2004) The language of websites. immature York, Routledge. 4. Dennis, C. , Fenech, T. & Merrilees, B. (2004) E-Retailing. New York, Routledge. 5. Steinbock, D. (2000) The line of Internet marketing communicatings. Westport, CT, Quorum Books. 6. Varey, R . J. (2001) Marketing communication: An introduction to contemporary issues. New York, Routledge. 7. Miller, D. & Slater, D.(2000) The Internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford, Berg. 8. Hachigian, N. & Wu, L. (2003) The data Revolution in Asia. Santa Monica, CA, Rand. 9. Mayhew, D. J. (2003) The web as software. In: Ratner, J. ed. Human factors and web development. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 3-19. 10. Kurosu, M. (2003) A cultural comparison of website design from a usability engineering perspective. In: Ratner, J. ed. Human factors and web development. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 47-59. 11. Mayhew, D. J. & Bias, R. G. (2003) Cost-justifying web usability.In: Ratner, J. ed. Human factors and web development. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 63-87. 12. Opaluch, R. (2003) Usability metrics. In: Ratner, J. ed. Human factors and web development. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 101-122. 13. Hamilton, A. (2002) The national picture: Thai media and cultural identity. In: Abu-Lughod, L. , Ginsburg, F. D. & Larkin, B. ed. Media worlds: Anthropology on new terrain. Berkeley, CA, University of calcium Press, pp. 152-170. 14. Swearer, D. K. (2003) Aniconism versus iconism in Thai Buddhism.In: Heine, S. & Prebish, C. S. ed. Buddhism in the modern world: Adaptations of an ancient tradition. New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 9-25. 15. Alty, J. L. (2003a) Databases, knowledge management and information retrieval. In: Feather, J. & Sturges, P. ed. International Encyclopedia of breeding and program library Science. New York, Routledge, pp. 100-101. 16. Alty, J. L. (2003b) Human-computer interaction. In: Feather, J. & Sturges, P. ed. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. New York, Routledge, pp. 228-230.\r\n'