a b s t r a c tWe present the results of a usability evaluation of a locally developed hypermedia information system aiming at conservation biologists and wildlife managers in Namibia. Developer and end user come from different ethnic backgrounds, as is common to software development in Namibia and many developing countries. To overcome both the cultural and the authoritarian gap between usability evaluator and user, the evaluation was held as a workshop with usability evaluators who shared the target users' ethnic and social backgrounds. Different data collection methods were used and results as well as specific incidences recorded. Results suggest that it is difficult for Namibian computer users to evaluate functionality independently from content. Users displayed evidence of a passive search strategy and an expectation that structure is provided rather than self generated. The comparison of data collection methods suggests that questionnaires are inappropriate in Namibia because they do not elicit a truthful response from participants who tend to provide answers they think are ''expected''. The paper concludes that usability goals and methods have to be determined and defined within the target users' cultural context.
The paper first shows how early programming was highly shaped by women, and who these were. It further shows when and why computing moved into the hands of men. Then it will deal with the culturally most differentiated participation of women in informatics studies. It turns out that low female participation is mainly a problem of the western, and north-western countries in the world. A lot of reasons are given, also only suspected ones, but there are so many diversities and influences, both in space and in time, that it is difficult to put them together into a consistent and stable picture. This also makes strategies to invite more women into (western) computing a contingent task and it requires steady accompanying measures.
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