Associations with Minspeak icons.

UNLABELLED Although the Minspeak approach is used on communication devices worldwide, little research has been conducted on its applicability within specific cultural contexts. The impact that users' familiarity of symbols and associations can have on learnability necessitates more systematic research. This study was an investigation into the associations which young South African adults from a tertiary education institution make with selected Minspeak icons, used in Unity software. Associations with the 12 core icons of the UniChat program were elicited from 480 able-bodied tertiary education students, using a cueing questionnaire. Each participant completed one questionnaire on one icon, so that 40 response questionnaires were obtained per icon. The responses from the questionnaires were pruned and computerised. Two analyses were done from these data: Firstly, the percentage of common associations per icon was calculated, and secondly, the elicited associations were compared to the current Unity vocabulary on a word and conceptual level. The results indicate that some of the icons and their encoded vocabulary items might be used successfully in the South African context, while others need to be adapted to be locally relevant. The results emphasize that iconic encoding systems based on commercially available graphic representational systems cannot merely be imported to South Africa due to the multicultural and multilingual nature of the context. LEARNING OUTCOMES As a result of this activity (1) the participant will be able to understand different types of associational responses based on icons used in Minspeak; (2) the participant will be able to understand the cultural relevance of some aspects of the Unity application programme; and (3) the participant will be able to identify different strategies that can be used to describe the cultural relevance o of the Unity application programme.