Responses of American Readers to Visual Aspects of a Mid-Sized Japanese Company’s Annual Report: A Case Study

Responses of American Readers to Visual Aspects of a Mid-Sized Japanese Company’s Annual Report: A Case Study

Bethany Haberstroh

This article by Maitra and Goswami outlines a research case study examining American reader responses to translated corporate annual report for a Japanese company.  This document was translated from its original Japanese version as a means for American readers to assess the visual design aspects in document design.  Protocol analysis was used as a means to collect reader responses.  Flowers and Hayes define protocol as a “description of activities, ordered in time, in which a subject engages while performing as task” (qtd. in Lauer and Asher 26). 

For the purposes of this case study, Maitra and Goswami use Shriver’s definition of document design as “highly constructive activity in which building an adequate representation of a communication problem demands careful analysis of the unique features of the given rhetorical situation” (qtd. in Maitra and Goswami 198).  Text refers to the written or verbal elements while document refers to both the written and visual components of a work.  A literature review uncovered a framework for this case study.  In particular, the literature provided elements of both American and Japanese document design

Research questions:

1.       How would American readers/document designers respond to a translated document that reflects the assumptions and preferences of another culture?

2.       Do the responses of a purposively selected sample of American readers and reviewers represent the cultural sensitivity of the American document design process models?

Methodology:

Four sets of two readers each were selected to reader the translated document.  Three of the four sets of readers were familiar with information design while the fourth set represented potential users.  A pilot test was conducted using one of the three sets of readers in order to establish a framework for the actual study.  Participants were asked to rank their knowledge of Japanese culture as “a) good, b) working, or c) poor.  All participants ranked their knowledge as “poor,” however a lack of consistently exists between their levels of “poor” knowledge and could pose a problem in the reliability, although this is not mentioned in the article.  For example, four of the readers noted that they had no previous knowledge of Japanese culture, while three were aware of differences between American and Japanese writing.  The last reader had previous language knowledge but had not used it in several years.  In order to determine any negative connotations, disconnects between visuals and intended meaning, or misplacement of visuals in the translated document, the readers were asked to revise the translated document for an American audience. 

Data collection:

The following types of protocols were used for this research analysis:

·         Reader protocols prompting readers to think aloud and express their thoughts during the exercise

·         Co-discovery protocols to get over problems of any individual reader in vocalizing his/her responses

·         Active intervention protocols when certain sets of readers skipped over several pages or were not familiar with the process

Four categories of responses resulted from the pilot test and protocols which include comments on (1) text, (2) quality and placement of visuals, (3) text-visual integration, and (4) page layout and cover design.

Results/Conclusion:

Results from this case study indicated the following:

·         Readers did not consider aesthetics to be the most significant goal for document designers when they used visual elements

·         Ambiguity in visuals and text-visual integration posed active interference in the readers’ comprehension ability

·         Response to the visuals was shaped by the readers’ discourse communities

Essentially, the American readers found it difficult to make connections between the visuals and text due to the ambiguity and lack of captions or callouts.  American readers “assumed that all visuals were there for a reason, namely, to convey or clarify an information” (200).  Furthermore, “readers were frustrated mainly because the visual was not integrated with the adjacent text, which is what American document designer normally does” (201). 

This case study provided a basis for future research on how and to what extent American document designers need to adhere to cultural specific document design and discourse communities. Due to the nature of case studies, these results cannot be generalized for a larger population.