1. System Design - EE321X Civilizations and Cultures Reflective Essay TEAM # Topic: C&C Essay Synthesis Name: Dillon Blackburn-Jones Date: 02/17/2015 Help Received: COL Barr

2. Functional/Physical Matrix - Product EE 321X Civilizations and Cultures Essay Physical > Functions \/ Students / Teams IT resources: computers/printers/ software / Internet Preston Lib/ Barracks Study Rm/NE427 Angel/ ePortfolio/ VMI Writing Center Identify various cultural products, practices, influencing system design XXXX Identify activities and assignments in the course that facilitated your learning about cultural factors influencing design XXXX Select most distinctive feature of cultural influence on systems design. XX ID course activities and assignments informing and shaping cultural understanding XX Integrate artifacts supporting analysis showing how you came to understand the distinctive CFs influencing systems design. XX Compose a draft essay XXXX Receive draft essay feedback/write final draft XXXXX Post/Publish Essay/Artifacts using Template for ePortfolio Reflective Essay XXX

3. C&C essay paragraph n One of the cultural components I am going to critically analyze is how websites are perceived differently between cultures due to their thought process thus effecting and influencing webpage system design. This is done through approaching how websites are viewed using eye tracking technology and deduce on whether a certain culture has a holistic thought or analytical thought when a webpage is viewed (A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Users’ Perceptions of a Webpage). Another distinctive cultural component that will influence webpage design is to understand educational cultural background differences and educational value differences between cultures (Understanding Cultural Influences: Principles for Personalized E-learning Systems). The last distinctive cultural component I can talk about that will influence webpage system design is cultural communication differences, aka language. Language allows effective global communications about webpage design. In this case language will affect the layout of a webpage due to the way a user reads it (left to right, right to left), understands it (general, specific, ect) and how big does it need to be to be able to view it.

4. MLA Formatted References n Honold, Pia. "Culture and Context: An Empirical Study for the Development of a Framework for the Elicitation of Cultural Influence in Product Usage." International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 12 (2000): 327+. Web. 24 Jan. 2015. n Dong, Ying, and Kun-Pyo Lee. "A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Users’ Perceptions of a Webpage: With a Focus on the Cognitive Styles of Chinese, Koreans and Americans." International Journal of Design 2.2 (2008): 19-30. Web. 24 Jan. 2015. n Boondao, R., A. J. Hurst, and J. I. Sheard. "Understanding Cultural Influences: Principles for Personalized E-learning Systems." World Academy of Science (2008): 495-99. Web.

5. A Reflective Essay - Cultural factors influencing Systems Design In my systems design course I learned that language is a distinctive cultural factor that influences the global support of products designed by engineers. Research revealed that to cover the target markets for affordable, globally distributed products that support documentation should be available in English, Spanish and Chinese. Language allows effective global communications about engineering products. Its distinctive nature requires a match between the target user of the product and the language they speak. Engineering support products, due to practical constrains, like cost and schedule, do not allow product support in all languages. So ….. I learned about how to identify distinctive cultural factors that influenced design by applying the systems engineering process that consists of four steps. The first is requirement analysis ….. Functional analysis and allocation……Synthesis and Testing. My first artifact consisted of gathering all requirements for the C&C components for writing a reflective essay and evaluating them to determine their influence on the assignment. This step also required that my team compose a statement that conceptually summarized the task at hand. The next artifact …. Next describe FAA, then Synthesis and finally Testing. In the synthesis s step our team had to make a list of all the requirements of writing a reflective essay and match them with resources available to compete the task. It was at this stage that I realized my essay would have to focus on three distinctive factors for which I had materials that would support a high rubric score on the essay. The course activities and assignments that were most informing and that helped shape my cultural understanding of design influences were collecting research on the topic, selecting criteria to evaluate the quality of the essay, developing and weighing alternatives for the essay and finally figuring out how my essay would be formulated on the basis of the resources available. Doing the research showed me many options and our teams rated the materials allowing me to quickly focus on ones that were most relevant systems design. It was when I looked at the alternative for completing this assignment that I realized I had to choose a topic where there was enough material for three distinctive cultural factors that would “present a complex, insightful analysis of a selection of substantive, varied, and revealing artifacts which fully support(ed) and develop(ed) (my) essay’s thesis/focus.” (Revised C&C Rubric) It was then that I realized a user’s manual I’d found on line was written in three languages, that languages are distinctive cultural factors and that I could express in a meaningful way the relationship between what I learned and how I came to learn it though my collected artifacts. I learned that systems engineering process (SEP) is a logical way think through a complex task and insure that it is completed successfully. In this case, I used SEP artifacts to identify distinctive cultural factors influencing design and composed an essay that I hope can be rated high using the scoring rubric. The SEP also made me aware that the influence of my work in this course extends beyond the classroom, since these essays also satisfy requirements imposed by the existence of VMI’s e-Portfolio system. Sources: VMI Angel Course Management System, "Revised C&C Rubric”, VMI, 2012. Web. 21 February 2012. Use MLA style: http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla

6. Synthesis – C&C Using your Functional Analysis/Allocation work, design a Functional/Physical Matrix for completing the C&C essay portion of EE321X. Review the consolidated Research Survey and express in a paragraph (150-200 words) how you will critically analyze three distinctive cultural components/practices that influence system design using supportive artifacts. Include at least three MLA formatted references that support your theme. Submit individually using the Synthesis - C&C Essay Assignment Template to EE321X dropbox, title it the C&C Essay Synthesis_Your_Name and show any Help Received.