UX Research is an attempt to empathize, a crucial step in the Design Thinking process. The goal is to understand a user’s needs, feelings, and frustrations associated with using a product or service and then develop solutions or approaches to solve their problem more humanely.
However, like all humans, designers are susceptible to prejudices and preconceptions that may not apply to the broad range of potential users. For example, the popular ‘Thumbs up’
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This is where the concept of Cross-cultural UX Research comes in. People from different parts of the globe belong to different cultures, whereby, they behave and interact differently. Cross-cultural UX research can help bridge the gap between users from different cultures or countries and result in a product that appears tailor-made to a certain community but works equally well for a completely different set of users, often with different expectations or requirements. This also ties in closely with the concept of Inclusiveness in design.
What is a Cross-Cultural approach?
In the 2000s, the Indian e-commerce industry was dominated by Flipkart. Their tremendous success inspired the e-commerce giant Amazon to enter the Indian market space.
However, initially, Amazon faced many difficulties due to a major difference between their previous target market and the one they had ventured into i.e. the U.S. and the Indian markets of the time.
Most Indian buyers preferred not to use their Debit/Credit cards for online purchases. Flipkart knew this already and had implemented a novel feature for their customers – Cash-on-delivery (COD). Following in the footsteps of its competitor, Amazon introduced the COD option and consequently overtook Flipkart as the online marketplace of choice!
UX leaders Elisa M. del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen point out in their book, International User Interfaces, “it is no longer enough to offer a product translated in ten to twenty different languages. Users also want a product that acknowledges their unique cultural characteristics and business practices.”
What cultural factors affect how a product needs to be designed?
Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede, in his Cultural Dimensions Theory, identified six aspects of cultural differences –
- Power distance Index (PDI): The degree to which a society accepts a hierarchical order (high power distance) versus a flat hierarchy (low power distance). This dimension expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. The fundamental issue here is how a society handles inequalities among people.
- Individualism: in individualistic societies, people take care of themselves, while in collectivistic societies, people take care of members of their in-groups.
- Masculinity/femininity: masculine societies (high masculinity score) prefer achievements and assertiveness, while feminine societies (low masculinity score) prefer cooperation and quality of life.
- Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which members of a society feel comfortable or uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
- Long-term orientation: cultures with high long-term orientation encourage preparation for the future. In contrast, cultures with low long-term orientation value quick results and prefer to measure performance on a short-term basis.
- Indulgence: the degree to which a society allows members to enjoy life and have fun versus suppressing gratification of needs.
The Cross-Cultural UX research approach
Here is a basic set of guidelines of things to consider while designing a product that will scale up well for a diverse, multicultural user set –
- Find Cultural Differences Within Close Proximity for two adjacent countries/cultures.
- Research Local UI Patterns; for example, the Navigation in English and Chinese apps are completely different.
- Understand How Users Interact with Information; some cultures prefer more information or options, whereas others prefer a more direct approach.
- Understand Users with Quantitative and Qualitative Data during the initial ‘empathize’ step.
- Never Rely Solely on Machine Translation – it is prone to errors.
- Localize Marketing text and Terminology – regionalize.
- Identify the Market’s Primary Devices and Connectivity.
Conclusion
Localization and adapting a product to a local culture seem like an unnecessary amount of effort. But with consumers becoming savvier, it helps brands authentically fulfill the needs of customers around the world. Not only that, the business value of localization is surprisingly high.
According to Localization Industry Standards Association, localization’s potential return on investment is $25 for every dollar spent. Net Media Planet reported their clients saw a 20% increase in conversions when website content and paid ads were localized for their international markets. That percentage shot up to 70% when entire websites were localized.
As global brands like Netflix, Starbucks, and IKEA invest in localization by employing specialized teams worldwide, there is no doubt that creating a cross-cultural design makes international users more likely to adopt and stay loyal to localized products.
