Speaker

Cultural diversity and ‘soft’ usability problems

Friday, 1:45 pm

Download Henri Christiaans' presentation here (.zip)

 

Henri Christiaans

Associate Professor, Delft University of Technology
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Design Research

Jan Carel Diehl

Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology

 

 

Presentation Abstract
‘Ease of use’ issues have become increasingly important because of increasing customer demands, enhancing product complexity, miniaturisation and the resulting ‘black-box’ designs. Meanwhile, the product development process of consumer products has experienced a globalisation of the business and a growing pressure on time to market.
Main causes of the problems are:

  1. Use of products/devices by people who do not understand the product/interface due to their different mental representation of that particular product; think of the role of culture, gender, age group and so on (the user perspective).
  2. Unexpected use of a product that is not foreseen by the designer or manufacturer, and therefore not anticipated upon (the business perspective).
  3. Increasing complexity of the total system (product + environment /connections + services).

These so-called ‘soft problems’ ask for a suitable solution for both users and manufacturers.
In this paper we focus on the user perspective, especially on the role of cultural diversity.

The interest in cultural diversity by manufacturers, designers and ergonomists is evoked by the evidence that culture is a discernible variable in the technology acceptance process and influences the attitude towards the usability of globally used products. Cultural-specific variables are related to user’s expectancies about usability. Depending on their cultural background, users may focus on aspects concerning effectiveness, efficiency or satisfaction (or combinations of each) when using such products. Therefore, assuming there is a linkage between culture and attitude towards usability, products should be modeled to the user’s local cultural background, in terms of producing systems that accommodate user’s cultural characteristics. Nowadays, companies realize the importance of flexible and adaptive design according to local markets. A company’s failure to acknowledged cultural differences often limits its product’s marketability. Therefore, a number of global companies already started to develop methods and projects to study cross-cultural aspects.

A series of pilot studies have been initiated to explore cross-cultural design in practice and education. Understanding the needs, tasks and environments of the people for whom products are designed is the key for cross-cultural product design. This is reflected in the research projects of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. In the paper a number of these studies will be presented as examples.

 

Speaker Bio
photo of Henri Christiaans

Henri Christiaans (1947) holds an MSc degree in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD Degree in Design Engineering from Delft University of Technology. He is an Associate Professor in the Applied Ergonomics in Design group of the School of Industrial Design Engineering. He is head of the Master Program Integrated Product Design at this school. Furthermore, he is program coordinator of the Master Program Retail & Interior Design at the Piet Zwart Institute at The University of Rotterdam.  His research focus is on design methodology regarding the cognitive aspects of product design and use. Finally, he is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Design Research.