3 ways to introduce intercultural communication practices into the design process
When speaking about culture in a company setting I’m sure you’ve either said it or heard it before, “a good cultural fit.” There is an inherently problematic issue with this idea; Culture is everchanging, which means that no company or person can ever hold a specific “culture.”
Academic studies have found that there are over 164 definitions, making the word highly ambiguous and a tad confusing. To say the least, culture is constantly being redefined. Culture is not static. We don’t simply engage with it. We create it ourselves and define what it means to us.
When thinking about the design process and its nature of constant iterations and ambiguity of meaning, I wanted to highlight how becoming more interculturally competent can help improve the design process. Being a good designer means being a great communicator — which means that we must understand that cross-cultural communication happens all the time — with our teams and our users.
What is intercultural communicaton?
Simply put, intercultural communication is rooted in — well communication! Being a good intercultural communicator starts with understanding what culture means. Merriam-webster defines culture as:
cul·ture | \ ˈkəl-chər
a: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group
b: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization
c: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic
.. ill save you the time. There’s 7 different definitions.
The fact that culture is everchanging means intercultural; occurring between two or more cultures, is equally ambiguous. However, the goal of effective intercultural communication is simple: to transform our perceptions, attitudes, and understanding of others to enable flexible and adaptable communication.
This also applies to the design process — As designers, we are always transforming our communication styles based on who we are talking to. We are empathizing with users to understand their perceptions, adapting product features to meet users' needs, and adjusting our communication to involve key stakeholders. I have outlined 3 ways we can introduce intercultural communication practices into the design process so that we can become more culturally competent within our organizations and the products we create.
Implementing cultural activities with teams and stakeholders
When you first think about intercultural collaboration in the workplace what comes to mind? Is it the ethnic background of your colleagues? The difference in religion? Or is it the difference in hobbies or job titles? When speaking about culture in everyday conversation it is common to refer to culture as the heritage and food, arts and social etiquette, etc. In fact, there is more to culture than meets the eye as shown in the “iceberg model.”
Whether we are communicating with design teams, potential users, stakeholders, engineers, developers, etc. we are constantly learning to manage cultural differences, resolve miscommunications, and foster deeper connections with others. Surface culture is only a part of the equation which means we must engage with team activities that allow the opportunity to learn the deep culture of all team members.
One of my favorite activities for uncovering deep culture is called, “Diversity Wheel” which invites team members to select 5 words that describe themselves using a wheel of categories and share their descriptors with others in the room. This activity encourages both self-reflection and awareness of how others want to be perceived. Adding these activities within organizations and teams is can be a crucial part of building empathy and fostering a sense of connectedness internally, which ultimately impacts the end product and its users.
Invest in cultural research & design teams
Although many larger companies have dedicated design teams for global product launches, time, and time again we see aspects of design that cut corners and minimize the importance of cultural sensitivity. Remember the epic fail when Pringles tried to market smokey bacon-flavored chips labeled “Ramadan Mubarak”? Not only was the product marketed in a store nearby one of the largest Muslim places of worship, but blatantly ignored the cultural dietary preferences of Muslims and implied a lack of cultural awareness.
This example is an extreme slip-up but these issues extend to the simple things too; Like designers opting to mirror design layouts to address RTL scripts or using culturally inappropriate stock images in mockups. Understanding these perceived, “small changes” is a whole entire job within itself. As designers, it is important that we start thinking critically about these differences. Companies also play a role and should be supporting designers with roles dedicated to intercultural research and design to eliminate these nuances and to avoid shaming their brands.
Intercultural communication is all about understanding that we all have a bias; our upbringings, language, rituals, metaphors that we live by, and more, are a huge part of how we perceive in the world. No matter how long one studies another country, gathers statistics about its people, or talks to people living there, it is impossible to fully understand the way of life and cultural tone of a country without actually living there. As more and more companies are launching products globally and working remotely, it is worth considering involving user experience designers and researchers who live abroad or hiring designers who specialize in cross-cultural design!
Practicing Cultural Analysis to improve design innovation
Regardless if we are launching a product in another region, it is important to practice our multi-cultural design skills as a way to become more aware of how culture influences design. By understanding the differences of features across products, we can become more competent in how and why we design in certain ways — hence creating a deeper understanding of our own cultural bias.
One way to do this is to use Fons Trompenaars’ framework of “The Seven Dimensions of Culture,” to analyze product features. This framework consists of 7 different spectrums which help distinguish cultural differences:
1. Universalism versus particularism.
2. Individualism versus communitarianism.
3. Specific versus diffuse.
4. Neutral versus emotional.
5. Achievement versus ascription.
6. Sequential time versus synchronous time.
7. Internal direction versus outer direction.
As a note, these guidelines do not take into account personal experiences or people coming from multicultural backgrounds. To avoid stereotyping and generalizations I will speak of them loosely.
While it is not always possible for companies to hire designers and researchers abroad, it is imperative that designers understand that design decisions are made based on their specific cultural perspective. For example, if you take an American music app, “Apple Music” and compare it to the Chinese music app, “Xiami” there are large differences in their functionalities that relate to its cultural world view.
Americans typically are more individualistic compared to Chinese who are more communitarian — We see this distinction from our government alone. However, taking away the impact of government for a second, Xiami is focused on social music listening by including features such as “listen together” which allows users to join music parties where they can listen to music with others on the app and comment or chat while listening. This feature alone can shed light on China’s value of community and the idea that users should be contributing to the collective music listening experience.
Conversely, the Apple Music app is geared toward the individual and provides a feature for users to create and name their own playlists. The idea of curating your “own playlist” can be drawn back to the individualistic view of Americans. Despite many American apps encouraging users to interact through music, sharing playlists, following profiles, etc., the concept of listening alone is still broadly used across music applications.
In fact, Spotify (founded in Sweeden) actually removed the feature allowing users to see what their friends are listening to after receiving feedback concerning privacy. Without knowing any of the details concerning this change, I would say that there were mixed reviews about removing this feature. Many people believed it was helpful in identifying friends with similar musical tastes as well as influencing their own musical discovery within the platform. Did geographic location play a role in the user’s need for privacy? Did users dislike the feature or did they lack user autonomy?
Becoming more interculturally competent certainly means more effort. However, an effort made is always better than none. Introducing intercultural activities, delegating roles to intercultural researchers & designers, and practicing cultural analysis can be a great step to introducing cultural awareness and practice within the design process. If you are a designer and have any other suggestions or ideas on how we can use intercultural communication practices within the design process, I’d love to chat!