This is the Nielsen Norman Group UX Podcast.
I'm Samita Tinkala. In our increasingly interconnected world, cross-cultural research
is more important than ever. As businesses expand into international markets,
they face the challenge of adapting their offerings to meet local tastes and expectations.
Cross-cultural research enables organizations to design products and services that
not only resonate with a diverse global audience, but also respects cultural values and practices.
To explore this topic, I chatted with Fei-Fei Liu, who is an international UX researcher at Nielsen Norman
Group. Now, being from China, Fei-Fei brings a rich personal background into the realm of
cross-cultural UX research. She also delves into her own personal experiences that have shaped her
professional path, discusses the importance of cross-cultural research, and shares insights
and considerations from cross-cultural research that she's conducted. I hope you all enjoy.
Now, it's no stranger to us that, you know, companies are seeking growth in global markets
more than ever. However, they often discover that strategies successful in their domestic markets
may not resonate with individuals in diverse cultural backgrounds. And one of the ways to prevent that
is understanding the importance of cross-cultural UX research and design, which is a lot of what you
you get to do. And so for those who aren't familiar, I was hoping you could tell us briefly what
cross-cultural UX research and design is all about.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you come across cross-cultural UX research and design when you design for a group of
users that is culturally different from yours, right? Like the most direct thing that comes to my mind is the
geographical region. Like say, I am a Chinese designer and our company plans to launch our app in the
United States. Then we need to research like what Americans want and need. And that might be different
from what Chinese people want and need. So, and in the context of the app that we're actually offering,
right? And we may end up like developing a totally different app for the U.S. market or a similar
app just with the content like translated or somewhere like, you know, in the middle. So I think that's
like when you need like the cross-cultural UX research and then inform the design decisions.
And also sometimes, um, there are like subcultures, like within the same region. Um, for instance,
like people, um, may speak different languages in the same region. Like there are many different
languages in India. Um, so that's sometimes, yeah, you also need to consider those like subtle
cultural differences, um, when you even design for the same region.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you bring up really interesting points about how it's not just
culture or cross cultures across different countries. It's even within regions. I was
actually just in India literally last week for about two weeks and, um, mostly in the
southern part of India. That's where my family's from. And even within the southern part of India,
I'm going to different cities and visiting different parts. And I'm noticing there just,
there were different languages being spoken, different religions being practiced, food that
they ate, clothing that they wore. I think one thing that, um, was a learning moment for me was even,
you know, saris, which is a traditional Indian, um, dress they're worn differently and they're
styled differently in different parts of India. And so, um, it's, it's, it really, and, and,
and the thing is, you know, people are strongly attached to their cultural roots and those might
ultimately, like you just said, influence their product choices and the ways that they
interact with those products as well. Um, I'm curious though, what got you specifically
personally interested in cross-cultural UX research and design?
I just came to the States. Um, I was friendly new, uh, it was my first time, like living in a different
country for a long time. And if you have ever moved, you know, like you have to buy a lot of different
things. Like I received like 50, like 100 packages for the first several months I moved here. And then I
got to realize, wow, like the things like people are doing here in the States are so different from
China. Like to name a few, um, I have to shop on different sites, different websites to purchase
different items. Um, like different, like designer brands for clothes or shoes and then, um, different
like mazes for like daily goods and target for groceries and, um, best buy for like electricities,
like electronical goods, stuff like that. And then like, it was different. And I received like emails
from all those like vendors. Um, and to compare it to China, like you bought all the things on the
same platform. That's like how people like it. Like people use centralized apps, like they use only
one or two at most like e-commerce apps. Like if we, if they use more than that, they feel like we
cannot handle that much. Um, and you can like track all of those like delivery in one single
app with just like some notifications. You don't have to check the emails. And I feel the number of
like my, me checking emails in the States for the first three months, like with more than the amount,
like I've been doing that in China in the past 20 years. Normally. So, right. It's so, I mean,
that is a lot of like cultural differences and cultural shock in terms of like how people handle
digital experience. And yeah, if you don't follow and understand those cultural norms,
you may lose out, you might lose out in customers and, you know, people might be,
might just move on to another app that is more centralized. Right. Uh, and so why do you
specifically with, with the digital world becoming, you know, increasingly interconnected? Why, why do you
think it's crucial for designers and researchers to consider cultural differences in design preferences
now more than ever? Um, that's, I mean, that's a great question. So, I mean, I feel the force
and the desire is from, come from two different perspectives. The first is like some companies, they
are actively like reaching out. They are not like satisfied with like only existing in their domestic
market. They want to expand. They want to know what's, what is there, um, in another part of the world. Um,
so that's why they are going to consider like, do we need to localize our product or do we just do some
translation? Um, there's a decision they have to make. And even if you don't do that, like proactively,
sometimes like customers from the other part of the earth will just like reach out to you. Right.
Because like the globalization and then the prevalence of like internet, like smartphones,
just makes international communication, like much more easier than before. Um, so people like just
randomly came across like foreign brands or like products. Cause when we conducted like e-commerce
studies in the States, in India and in China, like most of the participants, they say like, yeah,
I've shopped on like foreign websites. I've bought like, um, foreign brands. I know them.
And I just wish the whole process can be like more seamless. I don't have any questions that I had to
like reach out back and forth with, um, like a customer support in another part of the world.
Um, and then, so it's, it can be like very common, like for instance, say like a Brazilian, um, shopper,
they buy, they try to buy like a South Korean fashion brand because they saw their favorite Instagram
celebrity wearing it. So, I mean, that can all happen, but if the side of that brand, like if they
don't consider international audience, they don't have a translated version or if they made some
mistakes, um, in designing their translated version, for instance, if they fail to like translate the tax
in the visuals on their translated side, then they're like losing their customers. You're losing your
like value, like band, um, bandages. Right. Right. So I'm kind of hearing two pieces that are
really important is embedding translations, making sure people can actually access and
understand what they're buying and purchasing and also localization, understanding actually specific,
you know, cultural elements. Um, so there's a lot to think about, I guess. Right.
And so I guess designing for global audiences, it's, it's no easy task though. And so I'm curious
in your perspective, what factors do designers and researchers have to consider when creating
cross-cultural designs? Ideally, um, we want to provide the best, like localized version for every
single customer, um, in the whole world, but that, I mean, most of the time it's not practical and it's
not worthwhile for the investment because maybe your majority, um, of the foreign customers come from
the same region. Right. So, I mean, um, for the first part is to decide like which areas you wanna
like focus on most, like which versions maybe like you can pick, like depending on the size of your
company and business, maybe like three or four, or like even starting with one, um, and to provide,
um, I mean, a more dedicated, like localized, um, site for them. And then for the rest of them,
you can just start with like translated versions. Um, and even for the localized site, um, when you're
designing them, I think there are, again, like several factors to think about. One is like more
generally, like how far that culture is from yours. So, um, there are many like psychological theory,
um, like talking and discussing about the cultural differences. For instance, like the most classical,
one of the most classical theory is Hoppe's like cultural, um, dimension theory. You may heard of some
of them like an individualism versus collectivism, um, like long, short-term oriented versus like long-term
oriented, like a power distance. Um, those like terms can help you understand, uh, like a general,
like a high level, um, how people at that region, um, behave differently, um, compared to your audience,
like domestic audience. Um, and then another tricky part is to consider how those cultural differences
exist in the details, like how they, uh, interact with your product. So for instance, US and China,
there are a lot of like cultural differences, but if it's like a very simple app,
I don't know, like maybe, um, turn, like use the app to control how to turn, uh, land on,
that it's so simple. Like there is not so much cultural differences play in there,
but if let's say if it's an educational app that, um, teachers are gonna use in the classroom,
right? Then there's a lot to consider, right? Like the past settings and also the educational system
in these two countries are very different. So that's where like designers need to consider.
Okay. So because of the cultural factors, we need to accommodate our designs, maybe, um, delete this
feature, but add on that feature, um, for different, um, localized version.
Could you give us an example of what a localized design is?
Hmm. Yeah. I mean, we've come across, um, a lot of good examples, um, when we conducted that,
like e-commerce, um, study. So one example I can recall is, um, an Australian pharmacy, um, website.
So, um, um, it's a kind of like a train, um, for Chinese shopper to shop some, uh, like Australian
health care products on those like pharmacy beautiful websites. So many of them have a
localized, um, Chinese version. So they use like familia, like, I mean, those like color schemes and
also, um, information architecture design that is similar to those like biggest Chinese e-commerce
platform. Um, and also they, um, offer discounts during Chinese holidays. Um, and they provide
like fully the language of the site is fully in Chinese and also they offer support, um, in
like social media channels available in China, like WeChat, like the biggest, um, um, social media in China.
So when our participants saw that, they would say, oh, wow, this site is very trustworthy.
They're very professional. They consider like Chinese customers very thoroughly.
And, but if they look at another site that only like translated, they will say, okay,
they don't have much content to offer. I don't know what to do if I have a question about this product.
Um, and they are not that certain to make purchase decisions on like sites that only get translated.
Um, so I guess, yeah, that's kind of like how, when like the culture cross-cultural design
play a role because those pharmaceutical websites in Australia, they may provide a total different
like service to local users, right? Maybe they provide only like healthcare products. They also
provide like medication services. So like the, their local websites look dramatically different
from their like Chinese localized version. And that pays off, right? Like people like those,
like different designs for different purposes because it paters to their like cultural needs.
Thank you for that example. I'm curious how, or what are ways to actually understand,
you know, before you even do any research, what are ways you can analyze cultural differences?
Yeah. I mean, I feel you can look at it from like, um, uh, like a high level and, uh, contextual
level. Um, and I feel like for the high level, you can read about, um, that specific country, um, what they're
like valves like in their daily life. You can get understand more about that part of the region
of the world. And then, um, for the contextual part, I feel that a good way to look at it to get
started is to look at some like local competitors. Like I'm not, not asking you to like, to learn, like to copy
copy the design, but to actually take a look at them and just think like more deeply, like why
if we, if your design looks different from them in one feature or not, or maybe the whole IA,
like information architecture or, um, some specific parts of the app looks different.
Like think about why that happens. Like if the difference makes sense, if that implies, um,
the different way that people might interact with your product. Um, and also another thing
I can think about is to look at like social media, how people comment on, um, um, they use your,
your specific product. Um, so that's why, uh, where you can come across a common frustration,
the common challenge, um, they came across when using this type of specific type of product.
Another myth that people might have is that, oh, they are so different from us. Like they speak a
totally different language. They must be very different, but actually like the people like
how human mind works are, it's actually similar. Um, so I, I think the, the key, um, of doing like
cross-cultural research is not only analyzing the cultural differences, but it's more like
see how people in that region do like handle this specific service or products or using them.
But when you conduct research and looking at the results, seeing from the lens of cultural factors,
like just add an actual, extra layer of analysis, um, to the research. So, um, maybe that's the main
focus because they're so different from us, or maybe actually it's not that different. Maybe the
main mechanisms of how they interact with the product still remains same, but they just prefer
maybe a different communication channel or, um, uh, navigate a way to navigate. Um, and that's all
possible. I love what you just said with developing a cultural lens, because you're totally right in the
sense that, you know, a lot of people just assume that, Hey, we're all just, that's so different than
what we do. But at the end of the day, there are a lot of similarities too. I wanted to talk about
facilitating these types of sessions. You know, you've talked a lot about what it is, but, um,
I imagine this type of research requires a nuanced approach in many ways, since you are interacting,
um, with people from different cultures. And when you're conducting cross-cultural research,
how does your approach need to differ from a standard UX research approach?
I feel like the general best practices feel like stay the same. Um, you need to like, um,
keep like quiet. You need to build rapport first, and you need to like echo sometimes to insulate like
more soft. Um, because still like cross-cultural UX research is within the same big umbrella of UX.
When you do a cross-cultural research, a few things you need to consider, um, compared to a domestic one,
if you need to think more about the task format, like if it's a remote or in person, um, and like,
who will be the facilitator? Like if, if they're a language barrier, you need to get a translator,
or if you need to hire someone else to do the research for you, or, um, if you just try to find
like bilingual, um, user, participants. If you are designing for a cultural that, I mean,
you've never known before, um, and you, um, and your product actually, they use it a lot in their daily
life. Um, if that's the case, for instance, let's say we need to design a smart TV for people living in
South East Asia. But I mean, like none of the people in the team has, have been there,
or we don't know like how people there like use TV, like what kind of TV programs they follow.
If we have no idea about this information at all, the things to start with should be a PL study,
like to actually go and visit there, like to understand how people actually use TV. Like how
many people are there in one single family? Like who are using that specific product?
Um, so that's where like the context play a big role here, but maybe after we conduct the first
several studies, we found, okay, now we have a better idea. We have a concept. Then, um, we are
actually twisting our domestic product to a localized one. Um, we are running some usability testing,
and maybe we can just do it like remotely because we feel rapport with some participants and they
know what we're doing and we know what we're doing. We are more confident about the product
that we're going to launch here. And if you do find a translator, you need to kind of like give them
some tips. Like you cannot let the translator tell you there's the answer. Um, you have to just like
give them a little bit heads up on that. And you might have to reserve the session time to be a little
bit longer than usual. So to have, have time to cover the back and forth communication. Um, and, um,
again, um, if you, another approach is to recruit like bilingual users, but sometimes bilingual users may
not be like representative, um, compared to, um, like others because maybe they have a specific
certain qualities that the normal, um, audience doesn't have. So there is like a selective bias,
um, as we called. So those are things, um, we need to try to avoid. Um, and also sometimes people are not
like as captive, um, in their second language, um, compared to their mother tongue. Um, we encountered
an issue like that, um, in our study, um, in India. So, um, the, the, we, the session originally like
happened in English and though the participant was like fluent in both Hindi and English, but, um, when
talking in English, like she was very reserved. Um, she spoke a little, but, um, the trend
the, the facilitator, um, was our intern at the time. Um, she knew in Hindi and she, um, spoke Hindi
with the participant and boom, suddenly like she just like opened up and provided like lots of like
insights that was like very helpful. Um, so, I mean, yeah, sometimes you like your intent was pretty
good. Like, yeah, we want to try to, um, recruit bilingual users, but maybe they are not that
expensive, expensive, um, in another language. So, and, and, and especially in the setting of like
usability study. When, when you're in a situation like that, what are other ways to make, um,
a user feel comfortable or participant feel comfortable in the moment? Um, you know,
what if, let's say, what if you don't have a translator, someone who understands,
are there any other ways you can make someone feel comfortable in that situation?
Yeah. I mean, for me, I feel like my biggest, um, lessons learned situation like that is to be honest
and kind of be transparent and tell them there's no right or wrong answers and about what you are
doing or not. Like we are not testing you and testing the product. Um, so that's how we like
reassure them. But then, um, and sometimes I also share, like, I also come from a different culture.
Like, um, maybe, uh, I hope I don't like, um, be unintentionally, um, offensive because of the
language I speak. So, um, I mean, sad expectations like that before, um, actually helps me as well,
because it can make me feel less nervous, but also it tells participants to like lower their
expectations. Like we're, we're not like a very high standard. Like you don't have to
account for every single word you say. So, um, that also makes them feel better as well.
Um, but I mean, sometimes, um, and sometimes it just happens. Like people don't give a lot of
like verbal feedback. Um, and then that's why we need to like, yeah, observe their behavior and
ask more probing questions. That's another way that we can handle that.
So a lot of the practices apply, you know, in a non-cross-cultural research study as well.
I had one last question for you. And this question is around of what's next. How do
designers and researchers stay informed on cultural trends and changes to ensure that their products
remain relevant for, uh, people across different cultural contexts? What are good ways to, to know
and learn? I know you've mentioned a few, but I'm curious if there are any other ways to kind of keep
up with cultural trends and be. For sure. Yeah, definitely. I mean, so first, um, I had to admit that
people's attention resources are limited, so you cannot pay attention to like the changes in all culture,
cultures, uh, in all markets. So I'd recommend you to pick a few, like, right? Your biggest market,
um, to start with. And a few things I, uh, I personally am doing is follow the most popular,
like local designer or like UX companies or agencies. I follow your social media account
to see what is popular there. Like what are some like hot topics, like, um, new training design patterns,
like, um, why are they getting popular? Like why recently? Um, reflecting on that. So, um, and also
you can use like local apps, um, see your competitors, like what they are doing, like what are their new
promotions are, what they do, what do they look like, why they employ that kind of design patterns
instead of that. Um, and again, social media, um, I feel like those are things, um, we need to,
we can do to stay updated because I'm also running energy's WeChat channel in China. So that's how like
I get to know, okay, so those are like things people like us professionals in China are paying attention
to most like why they are doing that and why did that happen and how we can tailor our offerings,
um, um, on our WeChat account to better attract their attention. So, um, yeah, I give that suggestion
space from my own experience.
It never ends, right? It's something we have to constantly keep an eye on and, um, pay attention to,
uh, as things culturally are also changing and shifting and we have a lot of different other influences as well.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Um, this has been a
learning, um, experience for me as well. And, um, I really, really appreciate you bringing in your
expertise. Um, any final thoughts?
I need to share. Um, and I mean, anything culturally somehow like ultimately will become something
universally if it is good. So, I mean, we're all learning from each other, like whichever culture
we come from.
That was Fei-Fei Liu. If you are interested in reading more about the work that she's done,
take a look at the show notes, but also remember that we have thousands of articles, videos, and
reports on our website about UX design, research, strategy, and even UX careers. That website is
www.nngroup.com. And if you enjoyed this show in particular, please follow or subscribe on your
podcast platform of choice. This show is hosted and produced by me, Samita Tenkala. All video editing
and post-production is done by the Larimore Production Company. That's it for today's show. Until next time,
remember, keep it simple.