Rationals

In the economic arena, China has experienced a consistent, rapid growth of 9.5% per year in the past two decades and now is becoming potentially the biggest market and an economic giant in the near future. The Chinese IT sector has been a driving force in this economic growth under the government policy of promoting industrialization through digitalisation. According to the Information Industry Ministry, IT has already become the biggest sector in Chinese industry and foreign trading. China is catching up with Japan: the IT sector is now the second largest in the world in comparison to being ninth in 1989. China is now also the second largest IT market in the world, has the largest user population for mobile phones and the second largest for the Internet, and is expected to become the largest manufacturer for more and more IT products. Analysts predict that China will maintain a growth rate of some 22% in the IT sector and some 30% in the software and service area in the coming years. However the strength of the fast growing IT industry is balanced by weaknesses, three of which will be addressed within SESUN:

1. China has a low presence in the global market for full-life cycle (as opposed to limited ‘off-shoring’) software and innovative ITC product development. High levels of usability are critical to the quality of software and ITC products in a global market.
2. The lack of localization of software and IT products is factor that hinders the growth in the domestic market. The localisation of software and IT systems is a specialist branch of HCI – cross-cultural usability, in which there is much current research and development activity.
3. Compared to its counterparts in Europe there is currently very limited support in the Chinese IT education / university systems for the issues and problems of usable systems design

By linking IT academics and practitioners SESUN will address these and related concerns within the whole area of systems usability.