Proceedings of the 2004 Informing Science and IT Education Joint Conference Rockhampton, Australia June 25 – 28 Accessibility Improvement of Multicultural Educational Web Interface by using the User Centred Design (UCD) Approach MD Shah Jahan Miah Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane, Australia Smiah123bd@yahoo.com Abstract Designing of web accessibility features need to accommodate cultural differences in the multicul- tural world. This paper finds the literature on how the web accessibility features of educational website can be improved for multicultural users by using the User Centred Design (UCD) ap- proach. This paper reviews previous research on multicultural approach, accessibility functions and UCD approach. The reviews found some multicultural factors interpreted in terms of some cultural variables like Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism, Universalism, Mas- culinity, Neutral Culture, Specific culture and Achievement level during the designing of multi- cultural web sites, and the close observation on multicultural user’s understanding is important in designing well-functioned accessibility features. This paper explores the background on the UCD approach in designing the multicultural web ac- cessibility, beyond the access for users from different cultures. In particular, this paper intends to explain the opportunity of UCD approach in designing the multicultural accessibility features. Keywords: User Centred Design, Participatory Design, Interfaces, Human interactions Introduction Gathering information from websites is becoming common practice in this era. No one knows for sure exactly how many people are online. One guess is, there are 605.60 million people online as of September 2002 (Nua Internet Surveys, 2002). Websites are like a big world market place for knowledge, products, and other services. Well accessible Websites can give us many benefits such as increased publicity, extended business area, enhanced service to users/customers, and im- proved user/customer satisfactions for organizations. According to the report of IDP Education Australia (2003), it was found that the number of Inter- national students in Australian Universities is increasing rapidly every year. IDP Education Aus- tralia has conducted a survey on international students in 39 Australian Universities in semester one, 2003. The total number of enrolled international students in Australian Universities is esti- mated at 174,641 (IDP Education Australia, 2003). The increased rate is 15.5% from the semester two, 2002. This IDP report represents growth of strong economical signifi- cance to the Australian economy. For an educational institute, the web site is an important media to focus their offers such as information about degrees, fees, courses as well as the location easily to the world market. Material published as part of these proceedings, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by Informing Science. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission from the publisher at Publisher@InformingScience.org