East vs West - User Experience

I've decided to write some articles on how the west and east are different in areas that I am most familiar with. This one is about a common GUI feature - Graphic User Interfaces and user experiences in particular. I should warn you that I am notorious for stereotyping.

Ok, so let's start (I say start cos I intend to add to this series).

Creating Entities on Web based systems

In the past, online systems would gather all your data and then create an entity. Say for e.g. if you were placing an order, you would have to complete a form and then hit submit. The website's program would gather all your info, create a new entry on the database.

Later things started getting complex, for e.g. with shopping baskets, and thus the forms started getting bulkier which meant you'd have to spend over 10 minutes just filling up stuff before you can have your order created.

Hence, the standard was to create the order first, and then update this. Here is where the difference comes:

In the west, UK for example, a database entry is created and the Order ID is passed to the interface from the order database. This is like a placeholder, that the user is unaware of. This is not displayed on the screen untill the form is completed. When the form is complete, the record is updated. The user does not see any of the complicated token system. The reason the 'hidden token' is practiced, is because it allows the site to monitor orders that were initiated but not placed. Also, it allows queueing when orders are processed. But main motivation is to make life easy for the users or first time visitors.

In the east however, India for example, all this is exposed to the front end. The user has to first create a 'blank' order. Then the user has to open the blank order and add details to it by using an update option. Technically this is very robust - the user can keep a record of the 'blank' order created. Also, the user gets to understand how the site works (not sure how this helps really)

However, the problems with the later method is it's not user friendly - the user will need to understand two streams of operations on the site
a. Order Create
b. Order Update

I think it boils down to assumption of the audience's intelligence.
Programmers in India find it hard to appreciate how naive some of their western users can be. It also relates back to how we treat people - in the west, there is a general appreciation for other's time and energy. People in the west (in general) are caring and friendly when it comes to customer care. Back home however .. let's just say it's a different story.