On Designing for Multicultural Users

Status quo’s problem

Assuming that all users come from WEIRD (Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Developed) cultures is one of the major pitfalls when designing products and services. This pitfall is characterized by othering since it neglects the role of the users as participants and receivers of the work.

To me, the nature of design is not static and linear, as it tends to be all over the place since it seeks and accepts the myriad of ways to solve a particular problem, especially if it is a complex one. Design is about connecting dots. And connecting dots require designers to approach design in different ways. But still, dominant ideas and practices can influence a designer and their work that can eventually harm people and institutions.

Therefore, designing with intent requires an assessment of what happens in the design process that creates products and services, to better understand how decisions are made that shape the lives of multicultural users.

How might we best integrate various cultures in the making of products and services?

I want to emphasize that inclusive design does not stop at ensuring the inclusion of users, but also extends to the vigilance on the intent and application of the processes and methods that ensure inclusion.

Embedding Cross-Cultural Design in our processes

As the web rapidly globalizes, people bring their cultural identity with them — the attitudes, behaviors, and expectations inherent in their cultures. More people are coming online through their devices and other access points. And given that culture evolves rapidly now, does our approach and understanding of cross-cultural nuances enough to serve multicultural users?

For Akpem (2020), cross-cultural design asks us to 1) Embrace cultural immersion, 2) Research creative communities, 3) Work with experts, 4) Question assumptions, and 5) Prioritize flexibility. Perhaps these can be drivers in influencing the way we think and act towards designing for cultural nuances.

The rapidly growing multicultural users in different design areas are an opportunity for us to know more about their lived experiences to craft a more effective solution that addresses their needs, wants, and aspirations. This begs the evaluation of our design processes to incorporate cultural nuances and factors to challenge assumptions and other cultural blindspots. Thus, design methodologies need to be culturally responsive to serve multicultural users.

Moreover, unpacking the identities of multicultural users is not enough to understand other cultural nuances as nations and cultures have their own identities as well. To better examine this, Hofstede (1984) developed a framework of a taxonomic view of cultural dimensions. These are 1) Power Distance, 2) Individualism versus Collectivism, 3) Femininity versus Masculinity, 4) Uncertainty Avoidance, 5) Long- versus Short-term Orientation, and 6) Indulgence versus Restraint.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions helped shape earlier studies on a cross-cultural design by providing a taxonomic framing to unpack multicultural challenges in different contexts. His cultural dimensions were used as systematic guidelines to understand users in cross-cultural design processes and the relationship between design and culture (Röse, 2004; Shen, Woolley, & Prior, 2006). Earlier studies also delved into comparing across cultures the users’ design preferences and designers’ approaches to design (Christiaans & Diehl, 2007; Röse, 2004; Shen, Woolley & Prior, 2006).

Sun (2012) further expounds that “in order to prevent stereotyping in cross-cultural design, we need a design methodology that is more rigorous and human-centered.” However, in a study comparing the geographic information systems of German and American users, Harvey (1997) identified a gap in Hofstede’s system: “Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture are a good basis for understanding the influence of national culture on organizations’ self-representation, but miss the actual practice of social activities.” Furthermore, aware of the gaps in Hofstede’s system, Sun (2012) still recommends doing fieldwork and ethnographic research to observe how the audience interacts with interfaces in their natural context, supporting Harvey’s idea of the need to incorporate the actual practice of social activities.

Drawing from other works

Before the actual creation of a design solution, it is necessary to understand first the context and environment that users are in before jumping to any conclusions and solutions that might only be ineffective — thus, waste time and resources. Having a cross-cultural understanding that is also culture-centered will help designers to efficiently design for multicultural users since they do not have to start from scratch because there are guiding principles in place to direct them into a human-centered design that is culturally responsive.

What are the different approaches and processes of designers who design for multicultural users? What are the things that we can learn from them? How does a diverse user base respond to the design solution?

Part of learning more about this is to look at recent studies on cross-cultural design and human-computer interaction (HCI) so we can draw from the learnings of what worked and what did not.

Hsu’s (2019) study aims to better align technology, innovate products, and integrate service by the “virtual communication production” that enhances the design process by making it efficient — saving time and design cost by using cross-domain applications like 3D technology in fields like fashion design that serve multicultural customers. Through the functionalist approach of using technology to streamline the design process, the production of designs is now easier and faster — better serving the customer needs, and by also establishing a framework on studying a virtual design system.

Today, the production of designs or cultural products has become an important part of the relationship between designers and consumers. Given the challenge on different cultural backgrounds, Li et al. (2019) further explored improving the design process of end-to-end production by studying the overall perception of cultural products through in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, and online surveys — analyzing the cultural differences on value, marketing, and purchasing strategies, and even lifestyle.

Achieving an effective end-to-end design solution for the user requires effective collaboration and co-designing. By using interpretative theories and concepts, Trapani (2020) created a conceptual framework when co-designing to make it participative and engaging. These are 1) Motivation; 2) Focus; 3) Boundaries; 4) Rumination; and 5) Transformation.

In particular with designing successful cross-cultural products, Kreifeld et al. (2019) explored the meaning of cultural projects and extracting the cultural features of Taiwanese aboriginal cultures by developing a cultural ergonomic research model when designing for cross-cultural products including the intersection of the experience of design and culture in the design process. The cultural ergonomic research model unpacked the Taiwanese aboriginal cultures by illustrating the original meaning, images, features, and maximizing new production technologies that can transform them into modern products to fulfill the needs of the contemporary multicultural consumer market.

Part of designing for cross-cultural products is the aspect of preserving them, especially when the designs are expected to be part of cultural heritage. Shi et al. (2019) explored the “productive preservation” that facilitates revitalization through social innovation in the study of Taoyuan wood carving to assist its adaptation to the contemporary society that also digitalizes it for preservation. Digitalization means an opportunity to store cross-cultural data and analyze it. Davidov et al. (2011) complied several methods and how to apply these in analyzing cross-national data sets — methods such as the European Social Survey (ESS), the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), the European Value Study and World Value Survey (EVS and WVS), the European Household Panel Study (EHPS), and the Program for International Assessment of Students’ Achievements (PISA).

Referencing these different approaches, methods, and processes can give us a better understanding of what worked for multicultural users in the hope of establishing guiding principles to make sure designers are designing for all users. Perhaps having a cross-cultural design approach can eliminate or lessen the othering that happens when we prioritize designing for the WEIRD (Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Developed).

Conclusion

The number of multicultural users will continue to increase exponentially as the opportunities for them to participate and improve their lives are afforded by different design solutions. However, there is still that gap in terms of making sure that designers are designing for all users, and not only for a certain few. Thus, designers are exploring new ways to design that are culture-centered to make design inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Moreover, since each design fields have different approaches and processes to solve user problems, there could be a guiding principle and process for each field in terms of tackling multicultural users. Further studies may aim to understand the different approaches of diverse designers and establish a guiding framework that informs a design process nuanced to different cultural backgrounds through research methods that deep dive into cultural settings, particularly talking with different designers from diverse backgrounds and design fields to understand their design approaches and processes to different problems and how they design for multicultural users.

References

Akpem, S. (2020). Cross-Cultural Design. A Book Apart.

Christiaans, Henri & Diehl, Jan Carel. (2007). The Necessity of Design Research into Cultural Aspects.

Davidov, E., Schmidt, P., & Billiet, J. (Eds.). (2011). European Association for Methodology series.Cross-cultural analysis: Methods and applications. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Harvey, F. (1997). National Cultural Differences in Theory and Practice: Evaluating Hofstede’s National Cultural Framework. Information Technology & People. Vol. 10 Iss: 2, pp. 132–146.

Hofstede, G., & Bond, M. H. (1984). Hofstede’s culture dimensions: An independent validation using Rokeach’s Value Survey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 15(4), 417–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002184015004003

Hsu, Chiui & Wang, Claudia & Lin, Rungtai. (2019). The Study of Developing Innovation on Technology-Enabled Design Process. 10.1007/978–3–030–22577–3_1.

Kreifeldt, John & Gao, Yajuan & Yang, Gao & Yen, Hui-Yun & Taru, Yuma & Lin, Rungtai. (2019). A Study of Cultural Ergonomics in Atayal Weaving Box. 10.1007/978–3–030–22577–3_12.

Li, Bo & Ma, Chao & Zhong, Xingyi & Han, Ting. (2019). Contrast Research on Cognitive Differences Between Design End and Consumption End in Cultural Products. 10.1007/978–3–030–22580–3_5.

Röse, K. (2004) The development of culture-orientated human machine system: Specification, analysis and integration of relevant intercultural variables. In Kaplan, M. (ed), ‘Cultural Ergonomics’. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Shen, Siu-Tsen & Woolley, Martin & Prior, Stephen. (2006). Towards culture-centred design. Interacting with Computers. 18. 820–852. 10.1016/j.intcom.2005.11.014.

Shi M., Ren S. (2019) A Study on Productive Preservation and Design Innovation of Taoyuan Wood Carving. In: Rau PL. (eds) Cross-Cultural Design. Methods, Tools, and User Experience. HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11576. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22577-3_14

Sun, Huatong. (2012). Cross-Cultural Technology Design: Creating Culture-Sensitive Technology for Local Users. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744763.001.0001.

Trapani, Paola. (2019). Designing Co-design: Addressing Five Critical Areas to Increase the Experience of Participants and Facilitator in a Co-design Session. 10.1007/978–3–030–22577–3_6.

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