Buddhist website

The future alpha acquire give identify how the multimedia factors contributing to humankind-Computer Interaction (HCI) graphic utilisation, phone/video usage, merchandise section, etc. affect Tai substance abusers lieu toward Buddhist entanglementsite. The dissertation also seeks to determine whether the abovementioned factors make user to have either positive or negative or listless attitude toward the site. The study depart employ a two-part qualitative methodology, and the results, it is hoped, will lead to more in resileed policies for the assessment of Thai users attitude toward Buddhist websites.This dissertation will employ heuristic and business line research methodology to perform a high-level cultural analysis on Website externalise for the purposes of future research. The analysis of socio-economical and cultural issues (religion, Human-Computer Interaction, e-commerce, ethnography) relating to Website design is oddly valuable from the situation of the Th ai-speaking Buddhist audience. Future research on the matters tell above is expected to clarify what kind of information mass from the particular proposition cultural region expect and how it should be designed.Literature Review Mayhew once comp atomic number 18d a website to a book which anyone can display on The World ample Web (WWW) which is a repository of public information and transactions created by the public and admissionible to the public via the internet (Mayhew, 2003, p. 3). The characteristics of the WWW atomic number 18 tensely linked to the ones of the website. Any website incorporates multimedia data much(prenominal) as text, placid graphics, sound, animation, movie clips and realistic spaces arranged as hypermedia documents.These are the documents that fit links to other pages of information (Dodge & Kitchin, 2001, p. 3). The key issue about a website is its interactive, multimedia and hypermedia nature. The present research should be inevitably clothed ar ound the principles of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), user interface (UI) design, website usability engineering, and their influences on the website users. Alty defined the intention of HCI as 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, development, implementation and evaluation of the interactions crossways the interface between computer applications and human beings (often called users or operators) who are interacting with the application. (Alty, 2003b, p. 228) An authentic website should be constructed according to the principle of user-centered design.It means that the needs, capabilities and limitations of the intended users should be properly taken into account during the design process (Alty, 2003a, p. 100). Among the Internet user interface capabilities and constraints impact users perceptions Mayhew list ed modem speed, browser capabilities, browser controls and interpreters, installed helper applications or plug-ins, windowing, direct manipulation, and color (2003, p. 11).Within the linguistic consideration of HCI, a website utilizes output (text, graphics, sound, music, speech, color, animation, still pictures, moving video) and commentary (text keyboard, handwriting, gesture mouse, pen, dataglove, eye-movement, auditory sensation voice or sound) media to produce an effect on the user. Most publications investigates the tokens of user-friendliness in count on to a website (Mayhew, 2003 Mayhew & Bias, 2003 Opaluch, 2003 Boardman, 2004). Acknowledging the importance of this concept, Kurosu (2003) relied on cultural aspects of web usability such as cultural variety and depth of culture (p.48). The researcher utilized Suzukis (1997) definition of the culture as the response pattern shared by some specific group of people that is shaped through interaction with the environment (K urosu, 2003, p. 48) holding the response pattern as how people will interact with the Website, and interaction with the environment as the interaction with the Website through the PC environment, including the browser. Laney (1998) in his investigation of religious Christian Web sites relied on the Media remains Dependency as well as uses and gratifications perspectives.Some researchers (Weeks & Goodman, 2003 Proctor & Vu, 2003) investigated HIC within the context of human information processing and perceptual-motor behavior, whereas the other group of scholars (van der Veer & del Carmen, 2003 Yoshikawa, 2003) exclamatory the mental modeling as the core of HCI. Finally, Brave & Nass (2003) researched emotional implications of human-computer interaction. in that location is also a considerable embody of research (Mayhew & Bias, 2003 Carey, 2001 Steinbock, 2000 Varey, 2001) dedicated to the issues of e-commerce and selling relating to websites.Taken into account the field of the present research, reaction of Thai users towards Buddhist websites, the above recited mechanisms and structures of HCI with a stress of user-friendliness should be analyzed within the religious and cultural context. The sexual congress to culture in terms of geographical location is distorted and make complex 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 state unity) do not comply with cultural zones (Thai cultural identity) and virtual areas (the WWW).On the one hand, Thailand is ready to enter the globose community with its rather developed media network (Hamilton, 2002 Mccargo, 2002). On the other hand, the Thai national cultural identity is of intr everywheret type with its assertion of oddity in relation to a powerful external knowledge base of others (Hamilton, 2002, p. 153). sensation should also take into consideration the cultural eleme nts constituting the religion of Buddhism. Haynes (2003) stated that over 90 per cent of the Thais are Buddhists.In Thailand Buddhism is the sasana pracham chat, that is, the inherent national religion and constitutes an ideological basis and political legitimacy for the state (Haynes, 2003, p. 365). However, Haynes (2003) noted that the role of the state religion is flexible and open to debate (ibid. ). Swearer emphasized the unusual preference of Thai Buddhism towards the cult of relics, images, icons, and amulets (2003, p. 10). The religion in Thailand became more secular and commercial-grade (ibid. ).The discussion seems especially interesting when religious issues are get winded onto the virtual reality in the form of a religious website. Miller & woodlouse ac intimacyd the coming together of a widespread interest in the spiritual implications of the technology, found in some of the cyberutopian literature, together with an interest in the use of the Internet on the part of established religions (2000, p. 173). Laney (1998) noted that the decrease of web technologies and, thus, their cheapening contributed 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 indirect request to the goal of the website users in their accessing the religious websites. According to the source, 32 percent of the web-surfers are interested in religious news, 17 percent search for places to worship, 14 percent plan religious group meetings via the Internet, and 7 percent donate to charity 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 modest in realise to Buddhist websites. Within the Thailand context, Hachigian & Wu observed such HCI problems as the lack of IT access in rural areas where most of the population lives, lack of literacy in slope/lack of Thai content, incompatible systems in different parts of the government, and pitiable training of officials (2003, p. 88). Most of the Buddhist websites found by a homely search via search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc.) are written in incline. Therefore, the present investigation is associated with difficulties in locating authentic sites for analysis. Problem definition It is true that literature about the WWW and general principles of website user interface (UI) design has bragging(a) 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 being study are Buddhist religious sites on the World Wide Web.Large investments are being m ade 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 astounded at the 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 project seeks specifically to provide an exploratory study of Buddhist Thai-speaking website users and their motivations for using the religious Buddhist websites. Cultural theory as well as affable Models theory and HCI theory construct a complex framework all-important(prenominal) for the present analysis. In order to investigate Thai users attitudes toward Buddhist websites the future(a) theoretical framework was constructed. Three issues taken as independent variables 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 technical (e. g. , modem speed), user-oriented input (text, gesture, audio media), cultural (language, religion, country/nation) and other issues. The aforestated independent variables are vatical to affect (either positively, or negatively, or neutrally) the variable of website users perceptions.It is speculate here that graphics and multimedia elements do correlate with web-surfers emotions and attitudes. The second conjecture is that religious background of a user (Buddhism) reinforces his/her positive/negative attitude toward Buddhist websites. In an effort to determine the presence/absence of correlational statistics between website user design elements and Thai Buddhist users a revisit of previous implications of HCI and cultural paradigms is necessary. This research will attempt to provide a description of Thai Buddhism website usage.An additional purpose of this study is to identify the website design elements which positively/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. Numerous studies will be required to obtain sufficient knowledge to fully understand this audiences motivations and preferences for utilizing the most modern form of mediated religion. It is hoped that the present project will provide a jump 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 cybersp ace. 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