KOREA

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that cultural characteristics exert a strong influence on icon preference and recognition. Nevertheless, no study has been done to investigate the Korean cultural context in icon design. This study selected the most preferred icon among newly designed cultural icons based on Korean mental schemas for this study and two prevalent word processing software icons (one from a global brand and the other from a local brand) for the ten most popular word processing functions. The results showed that culturalization or localization were necessary to help enhance icon recognition because four new Korean cultural contexts based on Korean mental schemas were collected in this study. However, the newly designed icons with the most prevalent Korean mental schemas were not necessarily selected as the most preferred icons because of the training effect from long-term usage or the repetitive usage effect. When recognizing icons, subjects seemed to prefer a familiar icon, even in preference to a new one with a better representation of their mental model. Key-Words: Mental model, culturalization, icon design