Application Software and Culture : Beyond the Surface of Software Interface

Software applications are designed around user interaction. One interaction component is the user interface; the other deeper components represent the applications’ logic and their core functionality. It has been recognized that interface needs to be localized to the culture of software deployment and software internationalization architectures have been proposed. This paper continues the discussion on culture and software. The focus, however, is on the culture-dependent core rather than on the interface. This core corresponds to the deep culture as opposed to the surface cultural manifestations embedded in the interface. We argue here that deep culture can be embedded in software, and our perspective is that this should happen. Internationalization architecture that goes beyond the interface surface is proposed and illustrated using applications’ business logic component.