User Centric Research — Cultural Impacts on Business
How Cultural Impacts imply on digital products and usability?
Let’s start with the physical world before we jump into digital products.
Mc D — the name sure does ring a bell — have you tasted the fries and burgers across different outlets around the world. It sure seems similar but definitely tastes different. The patties sure different from chicken-beef-pork depending on the country you eat. For a brand to be successful localisation and cultural implications play a deeper role.
Have you ever given a thought on how a Digital Product is culturally oriented?
Let’s take you through a little snippets of a Product Design we worked on a while ago; it was an application that helps the user plan their own events (like marriage, engagement, birthdays, baby shower, anniversary and get-together) with ease. They can select the venue they want and the associated services like Photographers, Caterers, Decorators, Stylists, Event Planners, Artists, etc., for the event. On a nutshell this was the business need.
Our User Centric Research opened up some new information that showed us - How users decide what to select from the list of given information?
In most cases they are doing the task for their Big Day probably for the first time with lots of questions and without knowing what’s best for them. The process of freezing in a venue or service goes through multiple factors before it becomes concrete decision.
Factors that influence the decision
- Trust
- Financial Budget
- Socio Economic
- Value System
- Benefit
- Approvals within family
Belief system Vs Booking a venue
Week long weddings, with multiple rituals and ceremonies are very common in India. Catering to their needs is the foremost requirement of the application. But to freeze in a date and a venue is not that easy, it takes a family to approve and a priest to mark the date and alas the venue is been booked already. We don’t want disappointed customers right, how do we make an informed decision in a better and quicker way that can also benefit the business. We brought in the elements all at one place.
- show the auspicious dates
- demand for the venue
- how advance do they book
It does help them to choose all these and book the date without further delays by understanding the emotional needs of the users; not being just yet another task or a transaction.
Our process doesn’t stop with Tasks Flow, but extends one level above to Emo-Web (a topic for another day). Any product has to have a human touch of understanding the Value System of the users also aiding the business improve the revenue.
Helping the end user and benefiting the business yes that’s a win-win experience design. Stay tuned for more!!
