Children’s interaction with cross-cultural and multilingual digital libraries: I. Understanding interface design representations Dania Bilal a, * , Imad Bachir b a School of Information Sciences, The University of Tennessee, 1345 Circle Park, Knoxville, TN 37919, United States b Faculty of Communication and Information Management, The Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon Received 19 September 2005; received in revised form 1 May 2006; accepted 16 May 2006 Available online 12 July 2006 Abstract This paper reports the results of a study that examined Arabic-speaking children’s interaction with the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL). Assessment of the ICDL to Arabic-speaking children as a culturally diverse group was grounded in ‘‘representations’’ and ‘‘meaning’’ rather than in internationalization and localization. The utility of the ICDL navigation controls was judged based on the extent it supported children’s navigation. Most of the ICDL rep- resentations and their meanings were found to be highly appropriate for older children but inappropriate for younger ones. The design of the ICDL navigation controls was supportive of children’s navigation. Recommendations for assessing the cross-cultural usability of the ICDL are made and suggestions for system design improvements are provided. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Children; Digital libraries; International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL); Cross-cultural usability; System design; Interface representations; Appropriateness measure; Elementary school students; Middle school students; Arabic-speaking children; International interface design; Culture 1. Introduction ‘‘The on-line digital environment provides an unprecedented, powerful arena for youth to obtain informa- tion to participate in global learning communities’’ (Dresang, 1999, p. 1123). The exponential growth of Web technologies has provided system developers and scholars with the means for developing digital libraries that allow young users to interact with well-organized information and to understand the cultural heritage of the world around them. Prior research has shown that while children enjoy using various technologies (e.g., multimedia encyclope- dias, online catalogs, and the Web), they experience difficulty formulating adequate search strategies, commit 0306-4573/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2006.05.007 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 865 974 3689; fax: +1 865 974 4967. E-mail addresses: dania@utk.edu (D. Bilal), ibachir@ul.edu.lb (I. Bachir). Information Processing and Management 43 (2007) 47–64 www.elsevier.com/locate/infoproman